We That Are Young
by Stoplight Delight
Summary: It's a well-known fact that innocents make poor soldiers. Fortunately, Riza Hawkeye's childhood was not entirely innocent. She had to grow up fast... though she wasn't the only one. The early years of the Colonel and his First Lieutenant.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

Dawn was breaking over the eastern plains. The road outside the village of Hamner was empty, but a sharp-eyed observer might have noticed movement in the northern ditch—the deeper of the two, choked with weeds and wild grasses. As the grey sky turned slowly to pink and gold, a tiny figure could be seen toiling through the underbrush.

It was a boy. He was seven years of age, but he seemed far younger. He had the look of a frightened, emaciated animal, his matted and shaggy black hair falling in a filthy curtain around his shoulders and into his intense dark eyes. He was barefoot, and clad only in the trailing, tattered remains of a man's shirt. The buttons had long ago been bartered away for food, and the grimy garment was held closed over his gaunt little body by a piece of salvaged butcher's twine. He was so thin that his hands looked like spidery bundles of twigs as they clutched his famine-bloated belly.

He was shivering, for it was early spring and he was very tired, but he knew that he had to keep moving until the sun came up, or else he would freeze. He had no ultimate destination, but he could see the town on the horizon, and that was where his attention was fixed. Towns meant dogs, which were bad, and people, who were worse, but they also meant warm chimney walls to huddle against, and midden heaps and ash piles from which to scavenge food, and these were good things.

He had survived the winter by living in the alleys of a large town that lay somewhere behind him. When the warmer weather had come, and the townsfolk had started to venture from their homes more often, he had had to move on. If people saw you once, they would ignore you—they might even give you a few _cens_ or a piece of bread. But if they saw you more often, they started to think that they had to do something about you. It was then that they would try to turn you over to the village corporal, and the boy knew what _that_ meant. He had escaped a state orphanage once, and he was never, ever going back.

The sun was peeking over the rolling prairie behind him, but the boy was focused on the town ahead. He was so tired and wretchedly hungry. If he could just reach that first, neat little row of houses, maybe he could find some sheltered place to sleep. Then later, when he wasn't so exhausted, he could try to find food.

The first house was blue, with tidy white gables and a little picket fence. The yard was empty, with a well-kept vegetable garden and a bed of hollyhocks. The boy passed it by: there was nowhere to hide. In the next yard, a fat man in a bathrobe sat reading a newspaper and nursing a mug of steaming hot tea. The boy's mouth watered painfully at the sight, but he scurried quickly past that house and the next before the man could notice him. He was so tired...

A low hostile growl that grew rapidly into a series of sharp, furious barks that startled the boy so badly that he almost fell to his knees. A large, black dog strained against its chain, barking at the tiny intruder. The boy broke into a run, moving as fast as his skinny legs could carry him until his lungs felt ready to burst. He stumbled, and threw out his hands to keep himself from ploughing head-first into the grass. He tried to scamper to his feet, but he just couldn't manage it. Instead, he crawled forward on his hands and knees, away from the last house in the row, and away from the dog that had frightened him.

He sat back and cradled one bony knee in his hand. He had landed on a stone, and scraped off old scabs and a good deal of skin. He bit his lip and tried not to cry. Sometimes it was very hard to be alone.

Once upon a time, the boy had had a home, and good food to eat and proper clothes to wear. He had had a mother and a father, and a little girl baby who slept in a cradle and laughed when he puffed out his cheeks. Then one night it had all disappeared. He remembered waking up in the middle of the night, unable to breathe. He didn't remember how he had managed to get his window open, or how he had escaped through it without hurting himself in the fall, but he did remember the old lady who lived on the main floor holding him tight while he watched great tongues of flame devour the house, leaving only the smoking foundations, and a row of laundry blowing on the line.

With a tremendous effort, the child got to his feet, smearing the blood on his scratched knee. He looked around helplessly, wondering not for the first time where he should go and what he should do. Then his eyes fell on another house. It was along the same lane as the others, but a good distance away. It almost looked like an entity entirely separate from the rest of the town. It was a tall white house, the paint a little faded and the grass a little unkempt. A fence enclosed three sides of the yard: the fourth was marked by a thick hydrangea hedge. There was a tall tree in one corner of the yard, and a clothesline stretched from a pole to the wall near the back door. There was clothing hanging from it, rustling a little in the wind.

For a moment, the boy felt lonelier than ever. Then good sense took over. The hedge would be a good place to sleep: he would be sheltered from the wind, and hidden from hostile eyes. He could sleep there, and maybe there would be something to eat in the midden. He started to walk with renewed hope. If he could just sleep a little, he knew that he would feel much, much better.

Soon he reached the hedge. Getting down on his hands and knees, he crawled into its welcome shelter. The thin stems scratched at his arms and legs, but he managed to creep over to a hollow in the soft earth. He curled up into a ball, hugging his legs to his chest. He rested his unkempt head against his shoulder, and was soon asleep, his miseries and worries forgotten at least for a little while.


	2. A Lonely Day

**Chapter 1: A Lonely Day**

"_I love my cookies, they taste so nice. My Momma makes 'em with ginger spice! An' then I eat 'em while they're still hot, before she puts 'em in the cookie pot!"_

Riza Hawkeye sat at the kitchen table, swinging her plump little legs and watching her mother was the mixing bowl. The kitchen was full of the fragrance of the treats that were baking in the wood stove.

Momma laughed. "Cookie _jar_, pet, not pot."

" 'Jar' doesn't rhyme with 'hot', Riza protested. "A song's _got_ to rhyme: Papa told me."

Momma shook her head, but she was still smiling, so Riza knew that everything was okay. Your Papa tells you entirely too much, my little lady," she said fondly. "Sometimes I think he forgets that you're still only a little girl."

"I'm not little," Riza contradicted. "I'm three." She held up a trio of corroborating fingers.

"So you are," Momma mused. "I'd nearly forgotten."

Riza smiled contentedly. She was a big girl now! She could count all the way to a hundred and thirty, and she suspected that she could count even higher if she wanted to—except that it got really boring. She could make her little bed—not as nicely as Momma but much better than Papa—and she could button all the buttons on her blue dress (the only front-fastening garment she owned). She even knew the Aybeesee Song by heart. She knew about rhymes and cooking, and where baby birds came from, and she knew lots of other things that the other little girls didn't. She knew about soldiers and generals and Fûhrers and majors. She knew about matters and atoms and ellie-ments. And she knew about coffins and that they didn't really cough, and about funerals and gravestones and A Better Place. She was a very big girl now!

Momma opened up the oven, and Riza clapped her hands.

"Cookies! Cookies!" she cheered gleefully.

"Yes, indeed," Momma said, lifting the first one from the pan. "Would you like a little gingerbread boy, or a little gingerbread lady?"

"A boy!" Riza said decisively. "I want a boy 'cause I'm already a lady."

"A boy it is, my love," Momma said. She set the cookie carefully in front of the child. "Don't bite him right away: he's very hot."

Rizas nodded and studied the cookie intently. A little boy with a round tummy and a round head and short, stubby legs. Abstraction was a new concept for Riza, but something about the little figure reminded her of another boy—a real one.

She picked up the wee spoon lying next to the salt-cellar and used it to carve a face onto the cookie: two tiny eyes and a wide mouth. Proud of her work, she giggled.

"Look, Momma, it's Davell!" she cheered. "I made a Davell cookie! Now I'm going to eat him!"

She realized almost at once that she had said something wrong. Momma dropped the spatula and set down the cookie sheet with a clatter. Her face went very white, and her usually generous—though seldom smiling—lips vanished into a thin, disapproving line.

"_No_!" Momma hissed. "No, you shall not!" Then she reached down and snatched the cookie away.

Riza was frozen for a moment. Then her large, carmine eyes began to well with tears. "Why?" she asked in a tiny, plaintive voice.

"I told you _never_ to play games about your brother!" Momma choked out. "_Never!_ It isn't a game, don't you understand that?"

Riza didn't understand. She was only three and she couldn't understand. All she knew was that she had made Momma angry—again. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Momma. I love you?"

Something about the words, at once an attempt at consolation and a plea for forgiveness drove the demon from the woman's eyes—which were as crimson as those of the child. She thrust another cookie into her daughter's small hand. "Here," she said, her voice oddly haunted and hollow. "Here, take your cookie and go and play."

Riza didn't wait for a second command. She fled the kitchen, and entered the corridor. It was long and dark and lonesome. Riza moved to sit on the top step of the staircase that led to the bedrooms. She looked at the cookie. It was a gingerbread lady. Though it was warm and smelled delicious, she really didn't want it anymore.

She leaned forward over her knees to peer down towards the front door. Its small frosted window cast a square of light on the pretty rag rug. A sliver of candlelight marked the bottom of the door to Papa's study. The parlor door was a dark, gaping hole into a seldom-used room.

Riza got to her feet and slipped the gingerbread lady carefully into the pocket of her pinafore. She knew that Papa didn't like to be disturbed when he was at work on his alchemy, but today she was lonesome. It took both of her chubby little hands to turn the heavy knob, and all of her strength to push the door far enough for her to slip into the room.

Papa was sitting at his desk, which was piled high with books and papers. More of the same littered the floor, and the bookshelves that lined the walls were in disarray. Papa was bent low over a broad piece of brown paper, scribbling intently. He did not notice his visitor, so Riza spoke.

"Papa?" she said softly.

He looked up. There was a smudge of ink on his nose, and his hair was tousled. "Chibi-chan?" he said absently. "What can I do for you?"

Riza didn't want to tell him that she had upset Momma. "Will you play with me?" she asked instead.

"I'd love to, darling," Papa said with a sigh. "But I have so much work to do. Why don't you go and play outside for a while?"

"Okay," Riza said, trying to hide her disappointment. "I love you."

"I love you too, chibi-chan," Papa said. "After supper I'll read you a story, I promise."

" 'Kay," Riza said. " 'Bye."

She left the study, dragging the door closed behind her. She sighed unhappily. Nobody wanted to play. She wished Davell was still here. She missed him. Nine months was a long time for a child of Riza's age, and her memories of her elder brother were indistinct, colored heavily by the tinted photograph in the parlor. Still, she remembered that _he_, unlike Momma and Papa, had _always_ liked to play with her.

Papa had told her to go and play outside, so that was what she would do. Riza went back up the corridor and tiptoed into the kitchen. Momma was standing at the sink with her back to the door. She was scrubbing the cookie sheet, and her head was bowed so that her dark hair fell over her shoulders. Riza stood very still, hoping that Momma would notice her and give her a hug, but Momma was intently focussed on the dish she was washing. She didn't even know that Riza was there.

Disappointed yet again, the little girl moved across to the lean-to door. Her hobby horse was standing at the ready, and she grabbed it with both hands. Opening the back door required a bit of maneuvring, but at last she was out in the cool spring sunlight.

It occurred to Riza that if she set off galloping across the yard, she would crush the gingerbread lady riding in her pocket. She set her horse down on the new grass, and drew out the cookie. She set it on the tree stump table that she used for tea parties and other important social functions. Then she mounted her steed, and Major Hawkeye was off!

She was a special soldier, flying across the plains of the eastern frontier. She was bound for Central, bearing important messages for the Fuhrer himself. The only thing that stood between the nation and certain doom was brave Major Hawkeye and her faithful horse, Ruby

Riza laughed gleefully as she fell into the rhythm of a trot and began to pick up speed. She charged towards the house, turning sharply towards the southern fence. Her sand pile was a tall, snowy mountain that she and her mount had to climb. Then they sped through the marshes, the freshly-turned soil of the vegetable garden. The well-trodden path between the house and the midden was a mighty river. At this obstacle, a lesser woman would have balked, but she was Riza Hawkeye, Special Soldier! She urged Ruby on, and they swan through the torrential currents together.

Then she had to ride through the woods, which meant circling Davell's tree three times. It was Davell's tree because his tree house was still perched high in the branches. After he had gone to A Better Place, Papa had removed the three lowest boards that had turned the tree trunk into a ladder, but the upper four still remained, and so did the house—remote and inaccessible.

On her third trip around the tree, Riza's eagle-sharp eyes spied another horse and rider. She let out a whoop of delight.

"Doctor Bella!" she cried, galloping past the lean-to and Momma's washbasin to the place where the fence met the house. She waved energetically at the other equestrian.

Doctor Isabella Greyson patted her mare's neck, adn the gentle beast halted. "Why hello, Riza!" the kind-hearted physician said. "How are you today?"

"I'm lonesome," Riza admitted. She liked Doctor Bella, who was always friendly and who, unlike Momma and Papa, never minded if Riza talked about Davell. "I made Momma mad, 'n Papa's working, so I got nobody to play with. Will you play with me? You can be the Fuhrer."

The doctor chuckled a little. "I'm sorry, Riza. I'd love to play, but there's a baby coming, and I have to go and meet it."

Riza's eyes grew wide. "A baby? Is it coming here?"

"No, I'm afraid not," said Doctor Bella. "It's coming to a farm."

"Oh," Riza sighed. "Babies _never_ come here. I bet a baby would play with me."

The physician regarded her with a look of mournful sympathy taht Riza was too young to comprehend. "I'll stop by on my way home, if it isn't too late. All right?"

" 'Kay," Riza agreed. "G'bye."

"Good bye," Doctor Bella said. She clicked her tongue against her teeth, and the mare broke into a gentle canter.

"Nobody wants to play with me," Riza whispered sadly. She patted her hobby-horse on one beautifully carved cheek, but it wasn't the same as petting a real horse. Suddenly bored of her favourite game, she trudged back to her little table.

She sat down on one of the logs that served as chairs, and wiped her hands fastidiously on her pinafore. Then she frowned in puzzlement and annoyance.

The gingerbread lady was gone.

_discidium_

Riza was digging in the sand an hour later when Papa opened the kitchen window to call her in for supper. Having misplaced her cookie, she was ferociously hungry, and she eagerly hurried inside.

"Wash your hands, chibi-chan," Papa said, pushing the stepping stool up to the sink. Riza complied, then climbed onto her chair. She knit her eyebrows together. Only one place was set: a bowl of bread and milk, a sliced apple, and a gingerbread boy.

"Where's supper?" she asked suspiciously.

"That is supper," Papa said, his voice quiet and sad. He was pouring himself a mug of tea.

"No, that's breakfast," Riza contradicted.

"Ah." Papa looked perplexed for a moment, until he thought of an answer. "I thought it would be nice to eat breakfast at night for a change."

"Ooh..." Riza said, considering this and finding the explanation acceptable. "Where is Momma's breakfast? What about yours?"

"Momma went to bed," said Papa, pouring tea into a mug and sitting down next to Riza; "and I'm not hungry."

Riza took a spoonful of bread and milk, and chewed it pensively. "I saw Doctor Bella," she said. "She's gonna come over after she meets the baby, if it's not too late."

"That's nice," Papa said, but in a way that told Riza he wasn't really listening.

Riza picked up a slice of apple, taking out her frustration on the crunchy fruit. Even when she was with Papa she was lonely! It was a no-good, lonely day!

_discidium_

Mordred Hawkeye hurried towards the front door, his slippers whispering his passage on the well-worn rag rug. He peered through the window. Ah, he thought. So Doctor Bella had come after all. Too late to see Riza, but he was still glad to see her.

"Come in," he invited, opening the door and standing back to admit her.

The physician was a plump, pretty woman with a cloud of unruly dark hair that she tried to tame by dragging it into a severe knot at the base of her neck. She was wearing her short skirt and riding boots, with the white coat that was the hallmark of her trade over all. Her horse was standing at the edge of the lawn, its reigns resting on the dirt road that ran past the Hawkeye house and out towards the farms that surrounded Hamner.

"Hello, Hawkeye-sensei," Doctor Greyson said. "I assume Riza is asleep?"

Mordred nodded. "I had to drug her again."

He wasn't talking about his daughter, and the doctor knew it. It was she who had given him the oil of valerian with which to dose Lian, to help her sleep through the difficult times.

"How many times this week?" Greyson asked, following Mordred as he ushered her into the kitchen.

"Three," he said sadly. "I don't know what set her off this time. Something Riza said, I think. I don't know, Isabella. She's such a smart little thing. Why can't she understand that she shouldn't talk about her brother?"

"Because she _should_," the doctor said. "She needs to. You can't expect her to live in mourning for him. She's three years old. She deserves to be happy, Mordred. Doesn't she?"

"This is not a house of happiness," the alchemist said, staring out the window into the moonlight night. "Not anymore."

"There's no reason that that has to be true. Riza has healed. You and Lian can, too."

"You don't understand," Mordred said bleakly. He opened one of the burners on the stove and drew a flint out of his pocket. One hand flexed while the other struck a spark. The stove was suddenly alight with roiling flames. Mordred replaced the burner and put the kettle on to boil. "You can't understand. You have no children."

That was a cruel barb, especially coming from him, and the moment those words were out of his mouth the alchemist knew it. He drew an unsteady hand across his brow, refusing to look at his old friend. "That boy was Lian's life. She loved him more than anything. More than Riza, more than me, more than that desert god of hers. When Davell went, he took her soul with him. I'd do anything, anything at all, to get that back."

"He didn't take her soul," Lian said. "He took her happiness. And that's something that she can find again, but I think you have to find yours, first. Riza can help you."

"No," the alchemist said hollowly. "Poor little baby, she doesn't understand."

"She's lonely," Greyson said, steering the conversation in the direction that Hawkeye obviously wanted, but still focusing on her own agenda. "I think she needs a sibling. Perhaps if you had another child—"

"God, no, Isabella, we couldn't bear that! Even if I thought we could, Lian and I..." he shook his head. "It's not possible."

"Well, something will have to change," the physician said. "The constant melancholy isn't healthy for Riza. If you keep this up, you're going to lose your daughter as well as your son."

Mordred turned, horrified. "You aren't saying that—"

Isabella shook her head. "Not physically. Riza will live, but the happy little girl that she is right now... she can't survive much more of your constant brooding. Lian isn't well, she can't help it at the moment. But you can."

The kettle started to whistle, and the physician got to her feet. "No, I'd rather not have any tea," she said. "I've got to be getting home. Just think about what I said, Mordred. Something has to change."

She was gone before the alchemist could say another word. He took the kettle off of the burner and hurled it into the sink, where it landed with a loud crash and a flood of steam. He gripped the edge of the table with such force that his knuckles grew white. All very well for Bella Greyson to preach. She didn't understand. Nothing was ever going to change.

_discidium_

Unbeknownst to Mordred Hawkeye, an agent of change was huddled in the hydrangeas at that very moment. The boy shivered, watching the windows carefully. His stomach did not feel as pinched and empty as usual. There had been a girl in the yard that afternoon, and when she had moved around the building and safely out of sight, he had stolen her cookie from the little table. Unlike most food after long fasting, it hadn't hurt his belly at all, and he had devoured the whole thing. It had a strange, peppery flavour that still lingered in his mouth, and it made him very thirsty. He knew better, though, than to try to steal water in broad daylight. Now he waited anxiously for the candlelight to move from one window to another, appearing next on the upper floor, and then vanishing altogether. Even then, he waited for a long time before venturing out of his hiding place.

There was a pump on the other side of the lean-to, hanging over a wooden tub. The boy seized the pump handle and threw the full weight of his emaciated body upon it. To his delight, the handle was well oiled, and a splash of water shot out. He hauled on the handle again, and then again. Then he climbed into the tub, knelt on its wooden bottom, and lapped up water from the puddle he had made.

His needs thus satiated, he returned to the soothing shelter of the hedge. Though the night was cool, he was protected from the wind. He leaned back and stared up at the underside of the hedge. Through tiny holes in the green canopy, he could see distant stars winking at him. As he watched them, something that was almost a smile tugged at his starved mouth. Somehow, he never felt alone when he looked at the stars. He hugged his ribs and basked in their company.

For him, too, it had been another lonely day.


	3. The Boy in the Hedge

**Chapter 2: The Boy in the Hedge**

Riza did not much care for dolls, but she owned three. One was of wood, a simple, durable toy with arms that were fastened with pins that let them swing around in a circle. One Momma had sewed for her before Davell went away, and it had yellow yarn for hair and eyes of cherry-coloured wool. The third was a very expensive wax doll that Grandfather had brought her from Central when he came to visit at New Year's. It looked like a real baby, with a plump little mouth and sculpted dimples and rooted eyelashes, and it wore a long white frock all covered in lace.

It was this doll that Riza carried down the stairs to the kitchen. Yesterday's brief visit with Doctor Bella had convinced her of one thing: she wanted a baby to come to her house. After carefully considering the matter while she dressed herself in her blue dress and a fresh pinafore, she had decided that she knew how to achieve that end.

Momma was sitting at the table, curled over a mug of frothy green tea. On a usual morning, Riza would have been worried: when Momma drank green tea, she didn't make very good breakfasts. Today, however, Riza was a woman with a mission.

"Momma?" she said, a little cautiously. It was always best to approach Momma with just a little caution. Riza wasn't actually scared of her mother—at least, not all the time—but she had learned that it was best to be careful.

"Mmh," Momma sighed. A vague smile visited her face, and her heavily-lidded eyes focused slowly on her daughter. "Good morning, baby."

"Good morning," Riza said happily. Momma wasn't angry or sad. She was just sleepy. Papa had explained that Momma had medicine that made her sleepy, even in the morning sometimes. "You sewed my new pinny."

"That's right, love," Momma said. She leaned back, away from the mug of tea. "Turn around, and I'll tie it for you."

Riza obediently turned, and Momma took the two ribbons of her pinafore waist, tying them into a bow. Riza had not yet mastered that particular art. Momma stroked her blonde hair, worrying out the pillow tangles. Riza closed her eyes, briefly enjoying the physical affection. Then as Momma started to braid her hair, she decided that it was time to proceed with her plan.

"You sewed my pinny, so you still know how to sew," Riza said.

Momma chuckled a little. "Yes, I still know how to sew," she said.

"Can you sew clothes for my dolly?" Riza asked, holding up the beautiful wax baby.

"Does she need more clothes?" Momma asked. "Her dress is much prettier than anything I could make for her."

"Yes, it's pretty," Riza agreed. "But I don't want a girl baby. I want a boy baby."

"I see," Momma said solemnly. "What do boy babies wear?"

Riza thought about it. Her experience with babies was not extensive. The few she had seen had usually been bundled up in blankets, or in covered prams. She thought maybe boy babies wore dresses just like girl babies, but there was no way that she was taking any chances. Her baby was going to be a boy!

"I don't know," she admitted; "but big boys wear shirts 'n pants. I want a shirt and pants for my boy baby."

"Mmh," Momma said again, tying off Riza's braids with short pieces of twine and carefully lifting the doll out of her hands. Riza turned and watched with avid interest as Momma set the doll on the table and lifted its skirt over its head. Underneath, the doll wore frilly underpants. Its arms and legs were shaped of wax, but its body was soft cambric, stuffed with something fluffy.

"You know," Momma said; "I think I have some nice cloth left over from Papa's new shirts. I could make your baby something out of that."

"You can?" Riza asked eagerly.

"Yes, I'll do it this afternoon," Momma promised. "You leave your baby with me, and by suppertime I promise he'll be a proper little boy."

Riza threw her arms around Momma's waist, only a little encumbered by the chair in which the adult was sitting. "Thank you, Momma!" she said happily.

"Now, what about some breakfast?" Momma asked. She didn't sound nearly so sleepy anymore.

While she ate her bread and milk, Riza swung her legs happily, running over her plan in her mind. Once Momma had made the clothes, and her doll looked like a boy baby, she would take him to Papa. Papa could use his alchemy to turn the wax baby into a real baby! Then she would have somebody to play with all the time.

She couldn't wait!

_discidium_

After breakfast, Momma suggested that Riza go outside to play. It was a familiar line, and Riza didn't really mind it. Today, at least, she wasn't feeling quite so lonely. By bedtime, she would have a new baby boy to play with! So she let Momma put on her shoes and stockings, and she took Ruby out into the back yard. She raced across the plains for a while, from one fence to another, but the game just wasn't as fun without someone to be the Fuhrer and accept her important messages. Sometimes one of her parents would consent to fill this role: Momma reciting the appropriate lines by rote, and Papa ad-libbing almost distastefully. Grandfather was the best Fuhrer: he brought a wry, almost satirical quality to the part, and used funny voices and expressions that made Riza laugh all the time. But of course, Grandfather lived far away in Central, where he worked as a major in the military, and saw the real Fuhrer.

Bored with bringing messages to no one, Riza sat down in the grass to play with the clover. Only a few little blossoms had broken out, but they were very interesting to look at. They had hundreds of tiny white petals, and they looked almost sharp, even though they were very, very soft.

She was so intently focused on the flowers that she didn't notice Momma come out with her morning snack. Only when she looked up did she see the plate of apple slices set on her little table. Smiling, she abandoned the flowers, and moved towards the fruit. Today was a much better day than yesterday.

Momma had cut the apple into coins, and each one had a star in the middle. They looked almost too pretty to eat, but Riza didn't let that stop her. She took a big bite out of one slice, and let the sweet juice dribble down her chin. It was wonderful. She smacked her lips contentedly, and took another bite.

A rustling movement caught her peripheral vision, but when she looked towards Davell's tree, she couldn't see anything. A little perplexed, but not really curious, she turned back to her apple, finishing the slice she had started.

She was feeling happy, and when she felt happy Riza liked to make up songs about the things that made her feel good. She hummed a little to herself, testing out a new tune. Then she fitted words to it.

_"Apples are crunchy, juicy and sweet! How many apples can I eat? Apples, apples, they're so good! I'd eat a hundred if I could!"_

There was another movement by Davell's tree, and this time, Riza heard something, too. It was a low, hungry noise, and it was coming from the bushes. Her heart leapt in excitement. There was an animal in the hedge! Riza loved animals. In the winter, Papa had taken her down the woods by the creek, to feed the birds and the little animals who couldn't find very much food in the winter. Papa had taught her how to put out the seeds and bread crumbs, and how to sit quietly, very quietly, in his warm lap. You had to sit quietly, or the animals wouldn't come. Animals were scared of people because they were big and noisy. You had to be quiet, and pretend to be very little. It wasn't hard for Riza to do the latter, because even though she was a big girl, she was still very short and small. Staying quiet, though, was hard, especially when she saw the animals, because that was so exciting!

Riza took an apple slice from the plate. She broke it into six small pieces, and stood up very slowly and carefully. She walked forward, three little steps at a time, towards the hedge. When she heard a frightened sound, she stopped dead in her tracks. She set down a piece of apple next to her shoe, then retreated two paces. She set down another piece, then stepped back and set out another, and she kept doing it until she had a little path of apple pieces that led out into the middle of the yard. Then she fetched another slice, and set it a little way from the last piece.

Papa had showed her how to do this. If you laid out a path, and then sat very, very still with a piece of food in your hand, the animals might even come and eat it! She had had squirrels eat from her hand, and even a little red bird. Maybe this animal, whatever it was, would do the same thing. Maybe it would even be easier, because Riza was by herself instead of with Papa, and she was much, much smaller that Papa. She put the plate on the grass and sat next to it, her short legs stretched in front of her. She pointed her toes, and rested both hands in her lap, a slice of apple on her palm. Then she waited.

She waited and waited. The sun climbed higher, and the morning birds stopped singing, and the apple pieces began to turn brown, but still the animal didn't come out. Once in a while, Riza could hear it sniffling, or making hungry sounds, and a couple of times she could see the hydrangea leaves rustle when the animal moved, but still it didn't come out. It must be a _very_ shy animal, she decided.

Riza was starting to get stiff, but still she waited. Any moment now, the animal would decide to come out. The hungry noises were more and more frequent now, and the bushes rustled more often. The animal wanted to come and eat the animal, but it was scared. She had to be patient, and sit still—

"Riza, time for dinner!" Momma called from the window. "Bring in your plate."

Riza sighed. She would have to go inside. Now she would never see what kind of animal it was! She got up, dropped the apple slice next to the other, and picked up her plate.

"Why didn't you eat your snack?" Momma asked as she came into the kitchen. The table was set for two: Papa was obviously too busy working to come and have lunch. Riza climbed onto her chair.

"I'm feeding the animal," she said. "It's hiding in the hedge. I think it's a squirrel, or maybe a bunny."

"That's nice, love," Momma said, drawing the curtains to keep out the bright noon sun. "Here, eat your soup."

Riza picked up her spoon, and then dropped it almost at once. "I gotta wash my hands!" she said. "You forgot!"

"So I did," Momma said, drawing up the stool so that Riza could use the sink.

"The animal wouldn't come out," Riza said. "It must be shy."

"Maybe it doesn't like to eat apples," Momma said. "If you eat all your soup, maybe you can take the heel of the bread out, and try that."

"Okay!" Riza said. She climbed onto her chair and dipped her spoon into the fragrant chicken broth, catching two bits of carrot and a pea.

"I found the cloth from Papa's shirts," Momma said, removing several pieces of cotton from her pocket. "Which ones would you like for your baby's clothes?"

"The blue one for his pants," said Riza. "And make the shirt blue, too, just like Grandfather's uniform!"

Momma smiled. "So your baby is going to be in the military?"

Riza nodded. "Just like me! We'll be in the military and Grandfather will be our major! We'll be special soldiers with horses and everything!"

Momma laughed. She liked it when Riza talked about Grandfather. Grandfather was Momma's Papa, and she loved him a lot. When he came to visit, she was never mad or sad—not even when Grandfather talked about Davell. Grandfather was like magic.

Riza finished all of her soup, and set out for the yard eagerly, the heal of bread in her hand. She would set it next to the apple pieces so that...

She stopped, and bounced on the balls of her feet, overcome with excitement. The pieces of apple were gone!

Quickly, she crumbled the bread into seven chunks. She moved towards the hedge. This time, she got much nearer before the bushes rustled. She put down the first piece between two of the big roots of Davell's tree. Then she laid out her trail, much shorter this time, and sat down to wait. She hoped that the animal was still hungry.

Soon, she heard the sniffling sound. She smiled, and tried extra hard to stay very, very still. Any second now...

The leaves parted a little, and something came out. It was long and thin and white. It took Riza a moment to recognize it as an arm. The hand pressed the earth, and the rest of the body followed as something crept forward towards the bread. Riza deflated in disappointment. It wasn't an animal.

It was a boy.

And a very dirty boy, at that. Riza watched as he snatched up the piece of bread and devoured it, all the while staring at her from behind a curtain of filthy, tangled hair. She was too young to see his thinness, or the wild, skittish look in his dark eyes, but she could see his griminess, and the fact that he was only wearing a ragged shirt that trailed around his feet.

He hopped forward, almost like a bird, and grabbed the next piece of bread, never taking his eyes off her. Riza watched. He actually looked a lot like a squirrel, she thought: nervous and tense, as if he was ready at any moment to run scampering up the tree. She stayed very still, not wanting to frighten him. He wasn't cute or furry, but he was interesting. She watched as he reached for the third piece of bread. It disappeared after the others, and was quickly followed by the fourth and the fifth.

The boy looked longingly at the sixth piece of bread, which was sitting next to Riza's shoe. He eyed it, then looked at her, and then back at the bread again. He couldn't seem to make up his mind what he wanted to do. Then slowly, he stretched forward, moving one foot towards her for balance, and letting the other leg extend far behind him. He stretched out his arm as far as it would reach, and snatched the hunk of bread. He recoiled back to his original position so quickly that Riza was startled. She hiccoughed, and the boy's eyes flew to her, every muscle in his body tensing for flight.

"Don't be scared," Riza whispered. "I'm Riza. Who are you?"

The boy stared at her dumbly.

"I'm Riza," she repeated. She held out her hand, in which she held the last piece of bread. "Are you hungry?"

The boy's focus shifted to the bread. A stream of saliva dribbled down his chin. Riza wrinkled her nose fastidiously: that was gross! Spit was supposed to stay in your mouth unless you were brushing your teeth. But she stretched her arm closer.

"It's okay," she said softly. "I thought you were a squirrel, but you're not. Don't be scared."

The boy hopped a little closer, squatting in front of her. She smiled encouragingly.

"We can be friends," she offered. "You can play with me."

The boy didn't seem to understand. He was too busy staring at the bread.

"Come on," Riza said. "You can have it."

The boy darted forward, and his bony hand closed over hers. Riza let go of the bread, which the boy crammed unceremoniously into his mouth. Acting on impulse, Riza reached up and petted the side of his head, the way she would have petted a dog.

The boy gasped so hard that he nearly choked, and pulled away from her, but he didn't run.

Riza smiled. "I'm Riza," she said yet again. "Who are you?"

The boy was finished swallowing the bread, and he now chewed on his lip, watching her carefully. Then he reached out and brushed the tips of his fingers against Riza's cheek. She laughed a little.

"That tickles," she said. "Where do you live?"

The boy didn't have a chance to answer. There was a rumbling of wheels from the front of the house, where some farmer's cart was rattling its way into town. Riza turned to look over her shoulder, even though the house blocked her view of the road.

When she turned back, the boy was gone.


	4. Prairie Rain

**Chapter 4: Prairie Rain**

The boy crouched in the bushes, shaking with fright and trying to swallow his heart. When the cart had rattled past, he had thought it was somebody coming out of the house. There were adults in the house: he had seen them. There was a woman, who had brought the washing in from the line yesterday, and a man, who had dumped a bucket of charcoal on the midden late in the night. He didn't like adults, and he knew that they didn't like him. They would chase him away from warm walls, or vegetable gardens, or henhouses. They would set dogs on him, or hit him with brooms. They would yell if they caught him stealing, and they would try to catch him and turn him over to the village corporal even when he hadn't done anything wrong. He knew that adults could not be trusted.

In general, he didn't trust children, either—especially boys. Boys were mean: worse than dogs. They would throw stones at you just for fun, and they would chase you, and if they ever caught you they would hit you and kick you and steal things from you. That was how he had lost his shoes, long, long ago: mean, hateful, heavy-handed boys.

He didn't trust anybody, but the little girl was different. She was quiet, and gentle, and she was feeding him. He watched her now as she looked around the yard, a perplexed frown on her sweet-looking face. The boy wanted to go back to her, and talk to her, but he was afraid. He had been alone, fending for himself, for so long that he was unable to trust. The little girl seemed nice, and he was drawn to her because she was clean and smiling and had food, but he was scared that she would call for the adults, or maybe hit him, or something... he wasn't even sure what he thought she might do.

She stood up, brushing her skirt carefully, and surveyed the yard again. She started to walk towards him.

"Boy?" she called softly. "Are you there? Don't be scared."

She approached the hedge about six feet from where the boy was hiding, and parted the leaves with her hands. "Please come out. Where are you?"

He tried to speak, but his voice was rusty from disuse, and the words suck in his throat. The girl moved further away, peering into the bushes again.

"Where are you, boy?"

There was disappointment in her voice now. Frightened that she would go away and leave him all alone again, the boy licked his sore lips and forced out a hoarse, croaking word. "Here," he breathed.

The girl's face lit up and she came back towards him. She knelt down and drew aside the leaves like a curtain. They were face to face, with the branches weaving between them.

"Why are you hiding?" she asked softly.

The boy couldn't answer. He didn't really know the answer, and he wasn't used to using words to express what he was feeling or thinking. He gnawed on his lip and shook his head.

The girl reached out and pushed his hair out of his eyes. It moved in a rough, oily mass. She touched his cheek with the tip of one finger.

"How come you're hurt?" she asked.

The boy felt the place she had touched. There was a scrape there, a little scratch that he had probably got from the hydrangeas. He shook his head again, helplessly. He didn't know how to answer her.

"You don't talk a lot," the girl said. "What's your name? I'm Riza."

"Riza," he echoed, unsure what else to say.

He must have made the right choice, because the girl smiled enormously. "That's right!" she said happily. "Why are you in our hedge? How come you're so dirty?"

"I'm dirty..." he exhaled, looking down at his hands. They were black with grime, and his nails were long and ragged. He stole a peek at the girl's hands, which were pink and plump and very clean. He felt oddly ashamed. He _was_ dirty, very, very dirty. He didn't like it, but there was nothing he could do about it. He remembered soap, and baths in the tin tub next to the kitchen fire, but things like that belonged to the distant, half-forgotten world that had burned away so long ago.

"Doesn't your momma make you wash your hands?" the girl—Riza—asked.

The boy shivered a little. He wished she wouldn't ask so many questions. At least this time, there was something he could say. "I don't have a momma."

The girl's eyes widened enormously. "Why not? Where is she? Doesn't your papa know where she is?"

"I don't have a papa, either. They're gone," the boy whispered, staring down at his long, skinny toes.

"Who lives at your house, then?" the girl asked.

"It's gone, too," he breathed. He remembered it so clearly. The flames, licking the sky and feasting on the little white house...

The girl seemed to consider that. "Well, if you want to wash your hands, you can come and use my sink," she said in a magnanimous voice. "Momma wouldn't mind."

The boy shook his head. "No...no," he stammered, suddenly terrified. "No, please..."

The girl's brow furrowed in concern. "Don't be scared," she said.

The boy shook his head vigorously. "Please, don't tell anyone. I like it here. Don't tell anyone where I am."

"Why not?" asked the girl innocently.

The boy was at a loss. How could he explain that the adults she trusted were a danger to him? How could he express how nice this hedge was, sheltered from the wind and close to food? How could he convince her to protect him by her silence?

"Is it a secret?" the girl queried, her aspect brightening.

"Y-yes, yes, a secret," the boy said.

"Riza? Come inside, baby; it's time to eat!" the woman called. The boy stiffened instinctively, shrinking against the nearest trunk. The girl looked over her shoulder, and then turned back to him.

"I gotta go," she said sombrely. "I'll come back after supper. Will you stay here?"

"Will you bring food?" the boy asked, breathless with hope.

"Okay," the girl promised. Then the leaves fell back into place, and she broke into a bouncing, toddling run, vanishing into the house. The boy hugged his stomach and rocked back and forth. He hoped she would be back, and not only because she had promised to bring him something to eat. He liked her. She was nice, and it was so wonderful not to be alone.

_discidium_

Lian watched over her shoulder as Mordred held the back door open for Riza. She came inside and held out her arms for a hug. Her father gathered her into his arms, holding her close. The sight soothed Lian's heart a little. She missed her own father, and she understood Riza's feelings for Mordred. They were much the same feelings that Davell had had for her, before—

She shook her head. She couldn't think about that. She mustn't think about that. Instead, she ran through the list of things that had to be done. The supper dishes were finished. She had procrastinated again today, and the basket of freshly washed clothing was still waiting to be ironed, but she just didn't have the energy for such things. She was so tired all the time, and that medicine that Mordred gave her when she was upset made her even more weary. Still, it allowed her to sleep and to forget, just for a little while, that Davell was—

She couldn't think about that.

"What's so interesting in the yard, _chibi-chan_?" Mordred was asking.

"I like the yard," Riza said. Her voice was a little too loud, and the words a little too deliberate, almost as if she were equivocating—which of course was ridiculous. She was only three.

"Good," Mordred said. "Sunshine is good for the soul."

"Mm-hmm," Riza said, resting her chin on her father's shoulder. "Will you put me to bed, Papa?"

Mordred rocked to and fro a little, rubbing the little girl's back. "Of course I will, _chibi-chan_," he said. "And read you a story."

Riza cheered. "Thank you, Papa!" she said, bouncing excitedly in his arms.

Lian felt a tiny stab of jealousy. Mordred still had his child, his little golden-haired angel, and her little boy was lying in a cold grave up on the hill...

But she couldn't, she _couldn't_ think about that.

"Wait," she said as Mordred started towards the stairs. "I made clothes for your baby, love."

"I don't need the doll anymore," Riza said. "I've got a real boy now."

Lian forced a laugh. "What do you mean?" she asked.

Riza clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Nothing," she said. "It's a secret." Somewhere in the distance, there was a roll of thunder.

"Oh, all right," Lian said. She didn't understand Riza's games. She didn't really understand her daughter at all. She loved her, and she enjoyed her happy chatter, but she didn't understand her. Riza was so bright, and so intellectual, and so unfathomable—just like her father. Lian would never really understand either of them, not in the way that she had understood Davell. If only he hadn't—

She couldn't think about that. Mordred and Riza were on their way up the stairs. The kitchen was tidy, the floors were swept, and Lian wasn't about to start the ironing right before bed. She 

banked the fire in the stove, and picked up Riza's doll, which had been waiting on the kitchen table for its young owner. Lian was proud of the new clothes: she had used a scrap of yellow wool felt to make epaulets and a belt, and the baby doll looked like it was wearing a military uniform. She smoothed the shirt, and set the toy down. Riza would turn her attention to it again sooner or later.

Lian moved into the darkened parlor. It was not a room that the family used frequently. The furniture was heavy and expensive, the wallpaper was well-cleaned and protected from fading by heavy drapes. On the mantelpiece, there were photographs: Lian's father, Major Grumman, resplendent in his uniform with a chest full of medals; Mordred's parents at their wedding; a family portrait taken shortly after Riza's birth; and a photograph of Davell.

It was this that Lian took from its place, setting it on the coffee table in the centre of the room. She positioned it carefully, so that the light from the lamp in the corridor fell upon the frame, summoning the image out of the darkness. She knelt down on the floor, folding her hands into a steeple of prayer. It was time for her nightly ritual, a private and deeply spiritual rite that was supposed to comfort her, and make her loss easier to bear. Bowing her head, she began to murmur the familiar words.

"Isbala," she breathed. "Watch over my son. In life You loved him, and he died Your innocent child. Gather him into Your arms and bear him on the wings of the morning, to dwell with You forever in paradise. Comfort we who remain here, and give us the strength to continue without him. Help us always to trust in Your love, and to live as You wish us to, so that one day we may once again be reunited with Davell and with all of our loved ones who have died in You."

The familiar rote brought the comfort of habit, and the sense of a duty accomplished, but as she sat back on her heels to look at her son's broad smile, Lian knew that there was a hollow place in her heart where Davell should have been. The prayer, taught to her by her long-dead mother, was no longer the mainstay of consolation that it once had been. As the months wore on, Davell was still dead, and her life still empty, and Ishbala seemed remote and untouchable.

Not for the first time, she envied the agnosticism of her Amestrian father and her alchemist husband. They did not need to grapple with this demon. They did not need to ask how it was possible for a God who was supposed to be loving to allow a sweet little boy to die as Davell had, or how a loving Father could so strip his faithful daughter of all she cherished.

If only, Lian thought bitterly, if only Davell were still here. If only there were some way to bring him back. But of course, that was impossible. She rose to put the picture back, as the rain began to patter against the window.

_discidium_

Riza climbed out of the tub and flung herself into the towel that Mordred held out for her. She laughed as he scooped her up and began to dry her vigorously.

"That's itchy, Papa," she protested as he worked the towel through her hair.

"A little itchiness never hurt anybody," he said playfully, flicking her little nose with his fingertip. "Come on, let's get you into your nightgown before you catch double pneumonia."

"What's noomy-na?" Riza asked.

"Sickness in your lungs," Mordred told her candidly. "It's very nasty. It'll put you in bed for a week."

"I can't be in bed for a week," Riza informed him. "I have to visit my boy."

"Do you, now?" Mordred chuckled. "What boy is that?"

Riza shook her head. "It's my secret," she said resolutely. Then she bounced in excitement. "Oh, Papa, he's my boy! His house went away, so he lives in our hedge, and he never takes baths or washes his hands, and he doesn't wear any pants!"

"What?" Mordred laughed, trying to sort through the torrent of information that had burst from Riza's lips. He fixed on one point to address. "I thought you liked your bath, _chibi-chan_."

"I do," Riza said. "My boy doesn't take baths, not me! I love my bath!"

"I'm glad to hear it," Mordred said. So she had an imaginary friend who lived in the hedge. He knew that such playmates were common in small children, but Riza had never shown much inclination towards such games before. Still, it wasn't such a jump from an imaginary Fuhrer to an imaginary playmate, he supposed. He preferred the latter. Lian and her military dog of a father might dote on Riza's affinity for games of special soldiers and brave majors, but Mordred didn't like it. Children's games soon turned to adolescent interests, and the last thing he wanted was his little baby running off to murder on command the moment she turned sixteen.

"My boy is _really_ dirty," Riza went on. "He lives in our hedge."

"That sounds very nice," Mordred said. They were in the bedroom now, and he dropped her on her bed. Riza bounced and laughed.

"I want my blue nightgown," she said; "not the yellow one."

Mordred already had the desired garment in his hand: she _never_ wanted the yellow one. He held it over her head while she wriggled into it, and then gave her hair one last swipe with the towel before tossing it towards the door. "Into bed, my little lady," he said. "You need your rest."

"Yup," Riza agreed. "I'm tired. It's hard work to feed a boy."

"I daresay," Mordred agreed. There was a flash of light and a rumbling snarl of thunder that shook the glass of the window. He looked at it, and then turned back to see Riza's eyes wide with horror.

"What's wrong, _chibi-chan_?" he asked gently. Ordinarily, Riza wasn't afraid of storms. In fact, he wasn't sure that she was afraid of anything at all.

"Papa, it's raining!" she cried in dismay, pointing at the window. What had begun as a gentle pattering of rain was now something of a downpour, having whipped itself out of nowhere as prairie storms are wont to do.

"Yes it is," Mordred said; "but we're safe and dry in here. You go to sleep, _chibi-chan_, and in the morning we'll have sunshine again."

"B-but my boy!" Riza exclaimed, her lip quivering. "He's outside! He lives in the hedge, and he'll get wet and cold, and the thunder will scare him. He's a very scared boy, Papa! I have to go and get him!"

"Now, Riza, I'm sure that your friend will be just fine until morning," Mordred soothed. "Imaginary friends are waterproof, you know."

"He's not 'maginary!" Riza cried, bursting into tears. "He's real, Papa, and he's going to be all wet and cold! He hasn't got any pants on! Papa, I have to go and get him!"

Mordred was taken aback. Her distress seemed very real. She was truly taking this game to heart. He sat for a moment, at a loss as to what to do—and then realized that if he _didn't_ do something right away, she would go charging into the yard to see her imaginary companion.

"Ssh, _chibi-chan_, calm down," he said, drawing her into his lap before she could vault out of bed. "Don't worry. I'll go and tell him to come inside."

Riza looked up at him, her tearful eyes enormous. "You will?" she asked.

"Yes," Mordred promised. "He can sleep in Davell's room if he wants to."

"He could sleep in my room," Riza offered.

"I wouldn't want him to keep you awake," Mordred said. "You lie down. I'll go and let him in, and then I'll come sing you a song, all right?"

Riza nodded. "All right," she said, sniffling a little. Then she hugged him tightly. "I love you, Papa."

"I love you, too, Riza," Mordred said. "I'll be right back."

Riza nodded, curling under her blankets. Mordred got to his feet and left the room, picking up the towel as he went. After hanging it in the bathroom, he went down the stairs, taking care to step over the one that went off like a gunshot if you stepped on it the wrong way. In the corridor, he stopped, leaning against the wall.

Bella Greyson had said months ago that Riza would probably invent an imaginary playmate to take Davell's place in the household. The doctor had said that it was perfectly healthy and normal, and that such a guest should be humoured. But Riza had gone in one afternoon from having no such "friend" to working herself into tears worrying about "her boy" spending the night in the rain. It made Mordred uncomfortable. He knew he wasn't really cut out for fatherhood, but the ingenuity that made him a brilliant scientist had served him well in most situations. How, though, was he supposed to deal with this? Was it the beginning of the end of his carefree little girl? Was he truly, as Bella had prophesied only last night, about to lose her?

Mordred let out a heartsick sigh and drew his hand across his eyes. Well, he would go and tell her that he had settled her imaginary friend in Davell's bed, and then sing her a couple of lullabies. That would be good for his soul as well as hers. He loved Riza so much. Though it was wicked of him to think so, he could not help being glad, deep in the secret recesses of his heart, that _she_ was not the child that fate had stolen from them.

He ascended the stairs, once again bypassing the trick step. By the light of the bathroom lamp, he could see Riza's bed. He moved to sit next to her small form where it lay curled beneath the cozy blankets, but stopped midway. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was ever so slightly opened. She was fast asleep.

He stroked her golden hair, and bent in to brush his lips gently across her forehead. Then he moved to leave the room. He stopped at the hall window, staring out into the dark nexus of the thunderstorm. Then he turned to extinguish the flame in the bathroom.

He had a great deal of work to do. Tonight again, he and Lian would not be bedding together.


	5. Coping Mechanisms

**Chapter Four: Coping Mechanisms**

"Come on, _chibi-chan_," Mordred said. "We're going for a walk."

Riza looked up from her emptied breakfast bowl. "Where?" she asked eagerly.

"Where?" said Lian at almost the same instant, startling like a hound summoned to the hunt.

Mordred pursed his lips. He often went for walks with his daughter: why should Lian be suspicious today of all days? He knew that there were those in the village who whispered that his half-Isbalan wife was a witch—though no one would have dared to say it to his face. It was ridiculous, of course: typical military-bred xenophobia... but at times like this Mordred half believed it himself.

"Nowhere special," he said, striving to sound casual. "Maybe we'll see earthworms in the puddles."

"Yay, earthworms!" Riza said, hopping off of her chair and clapping her hands with glee. "Can my boy come, too?"

"Why not?" Morgan said, taking care not to grimace.

Riza ran for the lean-to, and disappeared into the yard.

"What is she talking about?" Lian asked.

Mordred shook his head. "It's just a game," he assured her. "We'll be back in time for dinner."

He stopped to pull on his duster and to pick up Riza's little coat. Then he left Lian alone to wonder—and hopefully not guess—where he was going. The last thing he wanted was to add needlessly to his wife's burden.

Riza was standing by the back hedge, apparently talking to it. As Mordred came up outside, she turned around. Glancing briefly back over her shoulder, she came toddling towards the house.

"He doesn't want to come," she said, sounding genuinely irritated. "He says he likes it in the hedge."

"That's okay," Mordred said. "I guess it's just the two of us."

He bent to help her into her coat. Riza smiled and rubbed her cheek against the rabbit fur of the hood. She put her hand into Mordred's and led him towards the gate.

"Where will we walk?" she asked.

"We're going to see Doctor Bella," Mordred told her.

Riza regarded him sceptically. "I thought we were looking for earthworms," she said.

"I think they're all underground again," said Mordred. "Worms don't like the sun."

"I do," said Riza. "I like the sun a lot." She stopped walking, and said in an annoyed voice; "I forgot to ask my boy how he liked Davell's room!"

"He liked it just fine," Mordred promised.

"Good," Riza said. "I like him. Maybe he'll play with me today."

"Maybe," Mordred said, staring up the street and calming himself forcibly. He would see what the doctor had to say before he worried himself.

_discidium_

The surgery was on the other end of the village, just past the market square. Bella Greyson lived in an apartment over her office, and the kitchen was behind the examining room. It was here that Mordred sat while the physician poured him a cup of tea and handed Riza a second oatmeal cookie.

"Here, honey. You can take it into the waiting room if you like."

"Thank you, Doctor Bella," the child said politely. She left the room, destined for the box of toys that were kept on hand for the younger patients.

Mordred waited until he was sure Riza was gone before he turned to the doctor. He had waited anxiously while Bella coaxed the story out of Riza—all the details about the boy in the hedge who had spent the night in Davell's room so that he wouldn't get wet or cold. Now that he had the chance to ply the physician with questions, all he could manage was a hoarse "Well?"

"She's fine, Mordred," the doctor said, smiling. "She's three years old. She has an imaginary friend. It's perfectly normal."

"But a boy who lives in a hedge and doesn't wear pants?" Mordred said. "She was in tears last night, worrying about him spending the night in the rain."

"That was when you said he could stay in Davell's room?" Bella asked. Mordred nodded, and she smiled approvingly. "You handled it well. All you need to do is play along, just like any other game. If it makes you feel any better, I promise she'll grow out of it."

"But she's not a hysterical child! She knows the difference between a game and reality, or at least she usually does, and—"

"Mordred. I'm glad you're taking what I said yesterday to heart, but I think your anxiety is a little misdirected. It's perfectly normal. She's an imaginative little girl," Bella said. "She's a bit lonely, and she misses her brother. This is just a coping mechanism, that's all. She was probably scared by the thunder, and she expressed her anxiety in terms of her invisible friend. It was quite a storm last night, you know."

She offered the plate of cookies, but Mordred shook his head. "If that's true, then what's next?"

"Oh, she'll probably assign him to a chair at the table, and ask for an extra cookie on his behalf, and so forth," Bella said. "She just wants a little more attention. There's nothing wrong."

Riza came back into the kitchen. "Doctor Bella?" she asked, rocking from toe to heel. "Can I have another cookie? I want to take it for my boy."

"Of course, sweetie," the physician said, smiling pointedly at Mordred. "Say hi to him for me." She stood up and squeezed Mordred's shoulder. "Don't worry," she murmured. "She's just fine."

_discidium_

The boy whimpered softly and scratched at his leg, trying miserably to scrape off the mud. It was starting to dry into a thick crust, and it was very uncomfortable. He knew he should just be thankful that the rain had stopped, but his present discomfort was all that mattered. His shirt was still soaking wet, and he was shivering, and the mud all over his legs and arms was driving him crazy. And, of course, he was hungry... but then he was always hungry.

He had hoped, when the girl came out of the house, that she was bringing food as she had last night—but instead she had come over to ask if he wanted to go look for earthworms with her. He didn't. Earthworms were slimy and horrible, and they made him sick if he tried to eat them. Then the man had come out, and the boy had been terrified that it was all over, but the girl had led the man away. He had been waiting for her since, hoping that she would come back so that he could thank her, and wishing wretchedly that she would bring him something to eat.

He didn't know what was wrong with him. He just couldn't bear the thought of leaving the shelter of the hedge. He didn't want to go out there, into the wide, empty world, to forage for food, and wonder where he was going to sleep, or how long he could stay in one place before people started to notice him. Though he lacked the insight to realize it and the maturity to understand it, he was weary of the endless uncertainty. He needed stability and routine, and in a strange way, sleeping in the hydrangeas and waiting for the girl to feed him was meeting that need.

"Boy? Are you here?"

It was the girl! She was at the other end of the hedge, near the tree. It was too muddy down there: the boy had moved to higher ground shortly after the rain started.

"Here," he called softly, peeking out of the branches. The girl smiled and hurried towards him.

"I brought you a cookie from Doctor Bella," she said; "but you gotta eat your dinner first."

She knelt down in the damp grass and put her hand into the pocket of her pinafore. "I got sausage 'n bread, 'n some sparergas," she told him.

The boy crept out of the hedge, watching ravenously as she drew out a slice of bread and a small hunk of meat. He had to restrain himself, and resist the urge to snatch the food from her. She held out the bread, and giggled a little as he grabbed it and started to cram it into his mouth. She reached into her pocket again, and pulled out three stalks of asparagus. She dropped it in the grass and stared at her clothing indignantly.

"Your sparergas made my pinny dirty!" she exclaimed. "See?" She pointed at a small, green-tinted stain in the pristine white cotton.

The boy nodded, grabbing at the ragged edge of his filthy shirt. He picked up the greens and began to gnaw at them. They were soft and salty, they had been painted with butter, and they were delicious. His salivary glands burned, and a dribble of spittle ran down his chin.

"That's not polite," the girl warned. "Spit's s'posta stay in your mouth."

The boy raised his hand to his jaw, strangely ashamed. He knew that he was a dirty, wicked creature, but that in itself did not usually bother him. Yet next to this clean, pretty child, he felt reprehensible and horrible. He wanted to creep back into the hedge and hide, not because he was frightened, but because he knew that he was inferior.

" 'M sorry," he whispered.

"Eat your sausage," the girl said in a very matronly manner. "Then you can have a cookie."

The boy looked at it. His mouth was watering, and he couldn't remember the last time he had had meat, but his stomach was churning. He wasn't sure if he could keep it down.

"Doctor Bella makes the best cookies," the girl said. "I asked if she would give me an extra one just for you, and she did! Don't you want it?"

The boy cast his eyes downward. "I don't feel good," he confessed.

The girl didn't seem to hear him. She was studying him closely. "You were playing in the mud!" she accused. "You're all dirty! My momma wouldn't like it."

The boy didn't listen. Out of the corner of his eye, he was certain that he had seen movement at one of the windows. His head whipped around towards the house with such force that a joint in his neck popped in protest.

Had someone seen him?

_discidium_

Mordred was drawing his pen out of the inkwell when he heard Lian scream. He dropped the implement, neither noticing nor caring that it spattered black droplets across the chart over which he had been toiling for days. The last time his wife had made a sound like that was the terrible afternoon when Davell had fallen from his treehouse...

Lian was in the kitchen, as she had been on that day. She was staring out the window, fright and horror on her face. Mordred caught her in his arms as she turned away.

"Oh, what is it? The horrid thing!" she wailed. Mordred hardly realized he was clutching her as he moved towards the window.

He could not believe his eyes. Riza was in the corner of the yard nearest the midden, kneeling in the grass and talking to... It was a boy, he was certain—but not because the filthy, feral creature in any way resembled one gender more than the other. It—_he_—was crouching before Riza, both hands raised to his mouth, which was obscured by a curtain of filthy hair. Relief warred with disgust. There was a boy, a real boy, hiding in the yard: living, no doubt, in the hedge. Riza hadn't invented the bizarre companion: she had met him. The realization cast a great weight from Mordred's shoulders.

On the other hand, the boy looked quite wild, more like an animal than a child. A protective paternal instinct awoke, and Mordred let go of Lian, pushing her away when she tried to clutch at him. He burst out into the back yard, intending to swoop down and snatch his daughter away from the filthy, hideous creature.

The boy saw him long before Riza did, starting like a frightened hare. He was every bit as swift as one, too, as he turned and dove into the shelter of the hydrangea bush. Riza cried out indignantly and got to her feet.

"Papa, you scared him! You scared my boy!" she exclaimed.

Mordred was almost as startled as the feral child, but he had two advantages. The first was that he was a highly trained and self-disciplined student of an ancient art that taught amongst its most sacred principles a rigid control of mind and body. The second was that he was firmly entrenched on his own turf. Over the years, he had made a few modifications to the property, using his art to make life just a little easier. One such modification was a transmutation circle at the base of the elm tree. He ordinarily used it to keep the hedge under control, and it was towards this that he strode. Dropping to his knees, he rammed his palms against the markings. There was a blinding surge of light and a terrified shriek, and then Mordred got calmly to his feet.

The ragged intruder was swinging above his head, dangling by one scrawny ankle from an arc of hydrangea that almost looked like a human arm. The boy was writhing and sobbing, clearly hysterical with fright. Satisfied that he was not about to escape before some explanation could be wrung from him, Mordred turned his attention to Riza. She was standing very still, staring up at the boy with her mouth open in shock. Her eyes were wide, and looked almost horrified, but then she recovered her wits and smiled.

"Don't ever run away from Papa," she cautioned candidly.


	6. Delousing

**Chapter 5: Delousing**

Mordred closed the back door firmly, and then turned towards the boy. He was on his knees, crouched like an animal with one bony hand splayed on the lean-to floor, and the other clawing convulsively at his tattered garment. He was watching Mordred intently, and when the adult's eyes fixed upon him he froze, every muscle taught and ready for flight.

"Momma, look!" Riza exclaimed, hopping up the single step into the kitchen. "It's my boy! He tried to run away, but Papa did his alchemy!"

"I don't want that thing in my clean kitchen!" Lian said loudly, backing against the counter. "Riza, go and play upstairs."

"No!" Riza said with uncharacteristic obstinacy. "I want to stay with my boy!"

"Leave her be, Lian," said Mordred, frowning down at the cowering boy. "I have a few questions for her."

"What are you going to do with it?" LIan demanded. "It can't stay here."

"Be still," Mordred ordered. "You—boy. What's your name?"

The grimy intruder's mouth twitched spastically, but no sound emerged.

Mordred drew in a calming breath, resisting the ugre to give into overprotective anger. This ugly little creature had obviously not actually harmed Riza: there was no reason to fly off the handle. "Tell me your name," he repeated firmly.

The boy's whole body was quivering violently. Mordred began to notice the sharp, unpleasant odor that clung to him.

"Your name!" he repeated imperiously.

"P-please!" the brat cried out, as suddenly and shrilly as if he had been struck. "Please, I'll go away, I'll never come back, p-p-please don't, don't—"

Mordred squatted down, though even in such a position he loomed over the bundle of dirt, rags and bones. "I did not ask you to go away," he said. "I asked you to tell me your name."

"P-please, please," the boy whimpered, burying his face in his hands.

Mordred took hold of one boy shoulder, consciously fighting the urge to recoil from the filth. He shook the boy firmly but not cruelly.

"That's enough," he said sternly. "Calm down. No one is going to—"

"Don't hurt my boy, Papa!" Riza cried out, toddling forward and pushing Mordred's arm away from the ragged wretch. "Don't you hurt my boy!"

"_Chibi-chan, _I wasn't hurting him, I—"

Mordred stopped mid-sentence when he realized that she wasn't listening. He watched, nonplussed, as Riza petted the crown of the boy's head, then bent low so that their eyes were level.

"I'm Riza," she said.

"Riza," the boy breathed, nodding shakily.

"What's your name?" she asked in a tone as different as was conceivably possible from the one Mordred had used. The obvious contrast sent a twinge of shame through the alchemist's chest.

The boy looked up at her, white and trembling but obviously more calm.

"What's your name?" Riza repeated gently.

The boy's lips moved, but Mordred couldn't make out any sounds.

"I can't hear you," Riza whispered loudly, leaning closer."

This time, Mordred could hear an exhaled syllable that he could not quite understand. Riza straightened up, a pleased smile on her lips.

"He says his name is Boy," she said triumphantly.

"_Boy_?" Mordred echoed sceptically.

"Yup," Riza said. "His name is Boy."

The unkempt hair swung from side to side as the object of debate shook his head. "Roy," he croaked, then shrunk in on himself as if frightened by his own outburst.

"Oh," Riza said, almost disappointed. "Well, it _rhymes_ with 'boy'."

"And your family name?" Mordred pressed.

The child mumbled something inaudible.

"Mustang?" Riza asked in a stage whisper. The boy nodded, and she turned primly to Mordred. "He says it's Mustang," she said, as if he hadn't heard her the first time.

"Where are your parents?" Mordred asked.

"Gone," Riza answered. "I told you that last night."

"Gone—dead?" Mordred pressed.

The boy nodded miserably. The alchemist drew a hand across his mouth pensively. An orphan and by the look of things, a runaway. The law in these matters was clear, but it was seldom followed. Orphaned children without relatives were often taken in by neighbours, even allowed to stay in their own homes if they were old enough to be trusted not to burn them to the ground. There was a reason for this quiet rejection of the system. Social programs were not the priority of a martial state, and children were the easiest group to marginalize: not useful, like adults, and not veterans, like the elderly. There was no use for them except as future cannon fodder, and so they were overlooked. The state orphanages were only the worst symptom of the disease, but they alone were horrific enough to impact the behaviour of the common people.

Overcrowded, underfunded, they were essentially the workhouses of Amestris, every bit as inhuman and unhealthy as those Credoan institutes so deplored by the military newspapers. They were all terrible, but the one in East City was the worst of the five. Dozens of its young inmates died every year, of two causes: pneumonia, which was a generic term for any of the countless infections that ran rampant in the dilapidated building; and "heart failure", which was used as a euphemism for starvation. There were rumours of physical abuse and worse, and the education offered to the residents was so far below the national standard that even the brightest children left the place good for nothing but manual labour.

This boy was dirty and disgusting, and definitely not any concern of his, and yet Mordred could not turn him over to the village corporal, to be shipped off to East City. Therefore, until he could come up with an alternative, the brat would have to stay here. And if he was going to do that...

"Lian, go and bring me two old towels and something decent for the boy to wear," Mordred said. "Then you can go for the doctor."

"You're not going to—" Lian began, falling silent when Mordred fixed her with a steely stare.

"We'll be in the yard," he said resolutely. "Riza, you bring the jar of soap."

He opened the door and motioned to the boy. "Outside," he said. "And don't try to run."

The year Davell had been born the village of Hamner had begun conversion to a modern sewer system, complete with a water treatment plant, indoor plumbing, and a brand new mechanical fountain by the cenotaph. The treated water, however, was too hard for laundry, and so Lian still used the old well to wash the clothes. Her washbasin was between the lean-to and the fence, and it was here that Mordred led the runaway.

"Sit," he ordered. To his surprise, the boy obeyed. The alchemist flexed his fingers and worked the pump, filling the tub with fresh, clear water. There was a transmutation circle burned into the bottom of the tub, with which he heated the water to a comfortable temperature. Riza came outside, carrying the earthenware pot of homemade soap with both small hands. She set it down next to the washtub.

"What're you gonna do?" she asked. "Are you gonna wash his clothes?"

"No," Mordred said, removing his vest and rolling up his shirtsleeves. "I'm going to wash _him_."

He crooked his finger at the boy, who stood up and came timidly closer. He was obviously frightened, but he seemed to understand what was going on, and he probably wanted a bath almost as much as he needed one. Mordred removed the ragged shirt first, tugging it free of the makeshift belt. He fumbled for a moment with one of the knots in the twine, then took the cord in both hands and snapped it.

Lian came out of the house, stopping dead at the spectacle. "In my washtub?" she exclaimed. "He's filthy!"

"I didn't think you'd want him in the bath," Mordred said. He took the boy under his matchstick arms and lifted him into the water. He gasped a little on contact with the warmth, and then quickly sat down, crouching as low as he could manage. Mordred turned to his wife. "Go and get the doctor."

Lian looked about to protest, but then she vanished into the house. A moment later, she walked past on the other side of the gate, wrapping her shawl over her head as she strode off in the direction of Bella's surgery.

Mordred scooped up a handful of the soft, grainy soap and massaged it into a lather. He took hold of one scrawny wrist and began to scrub the boy's arm.

Riza came closer, watching with avid interest. "How come you're washing him out here?" she asked, then said to the boy; "I have _my_ baths in the bathtub."

The boy made no reply, and he submitted meekly to the alchemist's ministrations. It was impossible to be gentle, but Mordred made a conscious effort not to be too rough as he worked the soap into the grimy skin. Soon, the water was murky and dark. He removed the bung that let the tub drain towards a sewer grate near the fence, then refilled it. The water came out cold, adn the boy started to shiver, but Mordred heated it as quickly as he could. This process was repeated twice, until the alchemist was satisfied that he had removed as much of the ingrained grime as was possible in a single bath. Then he took cupped his hand around the boy's neck and eased him backwards so that the filthy curtain of hair sank into the water. Dirt, oil and debris began to float away, and as Mordred pushed the matted locks away from the boy's face, a huge clump of black hair came off in his hands. With a disgusted shudder, he threw it on the grass.

"Ew!" Riza exclaimed. "It looks like a rat!"

Ordinarily, Mordred would have told her not to be rude, but she was right—and anyhow he had another problem. There were three tiny insects floating in the water while they drowned. Mordred parted the hair first in one place, then another and a third. The boy was crawling with lice.

Mordred sat him up and tried to work a fistful of soap into the matted mess. He scrubbed as hard as he could, and the boy rocked to and fro, trying to compensate. Without really meaning to, Mordred pushed a little too hard. The runaway overbalanced with a gasp of pain, ramming his hands down into the water to steady himself.

The water ignited with blue light. Then there was an ear-splitting shriek, and the boy scrambled out of the tub so quickly that he overbalanced and fell, cracking his chin against the gravel. Riza let out a startled "Oh!".

Mordred frowned in puzzlement, staring at the tub. It was letting off clouds of steam. He laughed a little. The boy had inadvertently activated the transmutation circle and scalded himself. The smile faded as he realized that the boy really _had_ scaleded himself. His legs were bright red, and there was a waxy blister already forming on his left heel. Mordred drained the tub quickly, and lifted him into it again. The boy was chewing on his lip, but he made no sound as the alchemist pumped cold water over him. Mordred took a fistful of hair and frowned. It was so matted that it was practically felted. Even if he managed to get it clean, he would never get rid out of the knots.

"Riza, go inside and bring me the scissors," Mordred said. "Be careful."

Riza nodded and vanished into the house. Mordred sat in silence for a moment, before it occurred to him that perhaps he owed the boy an explanation.

"I'm going to cut your hair," he said.

The wasted little creature didn't answer. He reached out one skeletal hand to touch the blister on his heel. It was hard to tell with the grimy water running down from his hair over his cheekbones, but Mordred thought he saw a tear roll along the child's nose. He sighed. He didn't know what to do in this situation. He hoped Greyson was in her surgery, not wandering the county on her endless rounds, and that Lian would bring her back quickly.

"Here, Papa. I didn't drop 'em," Riza said happily.

She handed over the heavy household scissors and watched, transfixed, as Mordred set to work. A few coarse cuts removed most of the hair, and a few finer snips left the boy with a somewhat lopsided but much more civilized-looking coiffure. It was certainly easier to wash, and after scouring the boy's body once more, Mordred sat back on his heels and grabbed one of the towels. He rubbed the boy down, and then looked to see what Lian had brought by way of clothing.

It was one of his own shirts, old and wearing thin at the elbows. Mordred considered his next move for a moment, then took the scissors and cut off three quarters of each sleeve. It was, of course, enormously too large for the child, but it was clean, and that was an improvement. He buttoned it swiftly, and then scooped the nest of hair onto one of the cut sleeves. He went around the lean-to and dumped the sopping mess unceremoniously on the midden.

He came back around the corner to find the boy where he had left him, standing by the washbasin and looking down at his belly. He was rubbing his hand up and down the shirt, his mouth agape as if with wonder.

Riza giggled. "You look like you're wearing a dress," she said.

The boy glanced at her, and then stared up at Mordred.

"Back inside," the alchemist said. "We'll wait for the doctor, and see what she has to say."

Riza clapped her hands. "Doctor Bella's coming?" she exclaimed excitedly.

_discidium_

Doctor Greyson lifted the child onto the table, and Mordred frowned at Lian before she could protest. Now eye-to-eye with the boy, Bella smiled.

"Hello, Roy," she said pleasantly. "I'm Doctor Bella. I'm going to take a look to see whether you're hurt. Is that okay?"

The boy glanced at Riza, and then at Mordred. He swallowed hard and nodded. The badly cut hair fell forward into his eyes, once again obscuring them.

"Mrs. Hawkeye, why don't you take Riza upstairs?" Isabella suggested.

"I don't think..." Lian began.

"Please?" said the physician. Lian stepped forward and took Riza's hand.

"But Momma, I want to stay with my boy," Riza protested.

"Don't worry, Riza, I'll take good care of him," Greyson promised.

"Okay," Riza said reluctantly, but she let her mother lead her from the room.

Greyson swiftly unbuttoned the shirt and removed it. She sucked in a small breath as she took in his corrugated ribs, the skeletal limbs, and the bloated abdomen. Mordred moved closer, taking in the details of the boy's appearance at the same time as physicians. His chest and legs were badly bruised in several places, as if he had had numerous nasty falls. His elbows and knees were covered in thick scabs and shreds of scar tissue.

"Your back is nice and straight," the doctor said genially, rounding the boy and running a hand up his spine. To Mordred she commented, "He was in your hedge, I take it."

Mordred nodded. "Riza hasn't invented an imaginary friend at all. He's crawling with lice."

"And scabies," the doctor commented, tracing a web-like rash that ran up the boy's left arm and over most of his chest. She took his chin in her hand and gently tilted his head. Then her thumb brushed the suppurating sores clustered around his mouth. "You have scorbutus, too, baby," she said softly, shifting the hair away from his face to check his eyes. "You're not in very good shape at all."

She checked the palms of his hands and the calloused, badly scraped soles of his feet. Then she had him sit, and ran her fingers through his hair, her frown deepening.

"I'll give you some chrysanthemum oil for the scabies," she said to Mordred. "And he has worms: I'll I don't want to use a purgative because he's so thin, but I'll talk to the druggist and see what we can do. For the lice—the easiest thing to do is shave his head. You wouldn't mind that, would you, love? I'll bet your hair's very itchy."

The boy nodded mutely, staring down into his lap.

"I don't understand," Mordred said. "He's so thin, but his stomach..."

"He's starving," Bella told him. "Water gathers in his peritoneum, and gas in his intestines. The swelling will go down after a couple weeks of good food. Putting on enough weight to be healthy will take longer."

Ordinarily, Mordred would have asked her what a peritoneum was: he knew little about the human body, for it had never been the focus of his alchemy, but as a scientist he was inherently curious. At the moment, he had a more pressing question.

"What should I do with him?" he asked.

"I could bring Selkirk," Bella offered, turning to her bag and putting on her stethoscope. "Deep breath, baby."

Corporal Selkirk. Mordred thought about obeying the heartless military law, and bowing to the will of the despot who styled himself king, hiding the hated tyranny under the friendlier name of "Fuhrer". He pursed his lips. "I can't do that," he muttered.

"I'm glad," Bella said obliquely. "You haven't changed as much as I feared." With two fingers, she tapped either side of the boy's breastbone. "Your lungs are clear, honey. That's good. There's another option, Mordred."

"He can't stay here," the alchemist said, thinking aloud.

"Not even for one night?" the physician wheedled, smiling charmingly and arching her left eyebrow. "Just until I can find someone who wants him?"

Mordred studied the emaciated, ugly, vermin-riddled gutter rat, and shook his head. "Who would want _him_?" he asked, curling his lip a little.

"He's not a plump, curly-haired baby," Greyson said; "but there are people who would love to have a child."

Whether Bella meant it as such or not, her words were a barb. Mordred felt a pang of regret that had nothing to do with the unkind way he had spoken about the runaway. He sighed. "Fine, he can sleep here tonight," he said. "But then I want him out of this house. He isn't my problem."

"Of course not," the doctor said. "Bring me a razor, and I'll shave his head before I go."

Mordred moved into the bathroom. He paused to look at himself in the mirror. A man fast approaching middle age, but still retaining some memory of youth stared back at him with hollow grey eyes. He stared icily back. He wasn't going to let her talk him into this, he promised. He had washed the boy, that was all. Tonight he would give him a hot meal, and he would let him sleep under his roof for one night. That didn't mean he was taking responsibility for him. He couldn't take care of an ill wife, a growing little girl, _and_ a starving street urchin. He had his family to think of. His family and his work. This boy wasn't his problem or his responsibility.

One night, he promised himself. Just until Bella could find someone who wanted a child badly enough to take this paltry substitute.

One night.


	7. Inside the House

**Chapter 6: Inside the House**

The boy stood very still, staring at the stove. To him, it was a wonderful, almost magical thing. It radiated heat, giving warmth to the kitchen and to everything in it, himself included, and yet he could not see the flames within. The boy hated fire, however he might also dislike the cold. Fire frightened him and filled his mind with unwanted memories.

He was alone. The man had taken Riza upstairs to bed. He did not know where the woman had gone. He wished that the _other_ woman had not left. He had a cat's instinct about adults, and he knew that the lady called Doctor Bella wouldn't hurt him. He wasn't sure if the man would: he had handled him roughly, and put him into water that suddenly burned, but he could have done a lot worse. The woman, though, the one with long hair and red eyes, she wanted to hurt him. Hit him, probably. She didn't like him.

She had argued when the man had offered him food, and when he had said that the boy could sit on the chair next to Riza's, she had protested angrily. So the boy had sat on the floor by the stove to eat the bread and milk he was offered. He didn't mind. The food was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, and there had been so much of it that he had not even been able to finish it all.

He touched the shirt that he was wearing, and wriggled a little against the clean cloth. He could not remember the last time he had had something clean to wear. And his head, though it felt strange and cool without its cover of filthy hair, now hardly itched at all! He only wished that the same was true of his side, he reflected, scratching at his chest and grimacing a little.

The sound of approaching footsteps made him freeze instinctively. The man came into the kitchen. He was carrying a grey blanket, which he dropped next to the woodbox.

"You can sleep here," he said. "We'll work out what to do with you in the morning."

He opened one of the cupboards and took out a tin mug, which he filled from the tap and set on the table. Then with one last look around the room, he walked away.

Left alone in the gloom, the boy wasn't sure what to do. He knew that he could, and probably should, take the chance to escape. It would be easy to slip through the back door and disappear into the night. Of course, he knew what that would mean: cold and hunger, and the terrible, terrifying loneliness. He did not want to face that tonight.

He wondered if the man would mind if he curled up in the blanket. It looked soft and warm and inviting, much more so than the bare floorboards next to it. Surely, if it was meant for him to use, the man would have said something...

Deciding not to take the risk, he crawled under the table. The legs of the chairs formed a shelter, of sorts, and provided him with a comforting barrier between himself and the large, empty room. He curled up, tucking his hands under his cheek, and closed his eyes. His last thought before he fell asleep was how wonderful it felt to have a full stomach.

_discidium_

Mordred left the kitchen and strode towards his study, but stopped at the door to the parlour. Lian was on her knees in the dark, staring at the photograph of Davell. She was silent, and so he knew that she was finished her prayers, and yet there she sat, frozen.

"Lian?" he said softly.

She gasped and turned, her face vulnerable with fright. Then it hardened into a disapproving frown. "I need to talk to you, Mordred," she said tersely, standing up and smoothing her skirt. "That boy cannot stay here."

"It's only for one night, Lian," he said wearily. "Just until Bella—"

"Doctor Greyson," Lian corrected, almost as if she were talking to Riza. "Why couldn't she take him with her, if it's so important to her?"

"Because she's the doctor. She could be called out in the middle of the night to deliver a baby or save an old woman or remove a ruptured appendix," Mordred reasoned. He was dimly aware that he was trying to rationalize for himself as much as for his wife, but he tried not to think about that. "She can't leave a five-year-old alone in a surgery."

"Then we should have gone for Corporal Selkirk," Lian said. "First thing tomorrow, I'll go and—"

"No," Mordred said firmly. "Leave it to Bel—Doctor Greyson. She'll find someone to take him in. I'm not going to let you turn him over to the state."

"I thought that was what you're supposed to do when you find a runaway," Lian said. "So that they can be sent somewhere where they can be taken care of."

"It's another military lie," Mordred growled.

Lian bristled. "The military doesn't—"

"Your _father_ doesn't," Mordred corrected. He drew his hand across his forehead. "Lian, I don't want to have this argument tonight."

"Then don't talk like a republican agitator!" she said brusquely. "And tell me why there is a filthy, verminous throwaway in my kitchen!"

"He's not filthy, I bathed him," Mordred said. "And he's in _our_ kitchen because he has nowhere else to go tonight."

"We have no room for another child," Lian said. "I can't take care of Riza _and_ that mangy little thing. You had no right to tell the doctor that we would keep him without talking to me."

"We aren't _keeping_ him!" Mordred exclaimed in exasperation. "This is a child, Lian, not a stray puppy! We're giving him shelter, for _one_ night, so that Isabella has a chance to find some family willing to take him in permanently. I don't want him any more than you do, but there's nothing we can do about it tonight."

"_I_ want him," a small voice said. Both adults turned towards the doorway, where Riza stood with her pillow cradled in her arms like a baby. "He's _my_ boy."

Lian shook her head. "Riza, we are _not_ keeping him here. He's only staying tonight. Tomorrow he's going to go and live with some other family."

"No," Riza said. Her large carmine eyes began to fill with tears. "No, he's my boy. He can stay here. He'll sleep in Davell's room, and he'll play with me, and we'll have so much fun!"

"He certainly will not!" cried Lian. "I'm not having that vile, scrawny, starveling little—"

"Lian," Mordred said, _sotto voce_. "One night." He picked Riza up. "What are you doing out of bed, _chibi-chan_?" he asked.

"I want to see my boy," she said. "He isn't in D—"

"He's sleeping in the kitchen tonight," Mordred said, interrupting her before she could speak her brother's name. "Where it's nice and warm."

"Can he sleep in my bed?" Riza asked, cuddling against Mordred's arm and looking up at her with her enormous, innocent eyes.

"No," Mordred said, carrying her towards the stairs. "No, he can't."

"Why not?" Riza asked.

There were at least a dozen reasons, but few would make sense to a three-year-old. Mordred chose the most tangible. "He has bugs under his skin," he said. "If he sleeps in your bed, you'll catch them too, and then you'll be itchy."

"Ooh." Riza considered this, and then perked up. "I won't catch 'em," she said. "I promise!"

Mordred laughed softly. "I'm sorry, _chibi-chan_, but the bugs don't care if you promise. Now, let's get you to bed."

"Papa, please?" Riza said as he settled her between the sheets for the second time that evening. "Please, don't send my boy away. He likes it here, he told me. He likes our hedge."

"We'll see," Mordred said, kissing his baby's forehead. "Go to sleep."

Riza nodded and snuggled under the covers. Mordred stood up and backed towards the door. He turned, and almost bumped into his wife. She was glaring at him in that particularly piercing way that had something to do with her Ishbalan eyes.

"One night, Lian. I promise," Mordred said. "Go to bed. I have work to do."

He brushed past her and made his way back down the stairs.

_discidium_

Riza sat on the floor of her bedroom, building a tower with her blocks and chatting happily at the boy named Roy, who sat with his legs to his chest, Mordred's shirt covering them like a tent. He didn't say much, but his playmate didn't seem to mind. Neither of them noticed the alchemist as he stood in the doorway, watching them silently.

"She'll forgive you," Bella Greyson whispered, coming up behind him and placing a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. "It may take a while, but she'll forgive you."

Mordred sighed, drawing the door closed and leaning against it, staring out the window at the head of the stairs. "I'm doing the right thing," he said. "I'm not responsible for that boy."

"Of course not," said the physician. "It isn't your responsibility to save the world. Or even one homeless child. It's the responsibility of the state."

Mordred sighed. "Bella, you said one night. It's been four days."

"Yes," the physician agreed. "He already looks healthier."

Mordred turned on her with a guffaw of frustration. "Bella, don't try to manipulate me! He's going. You tried to find him a place to stay, and you failed. I have no choice."

"I understand completely," she said, nodding sombrely.

Mordred sighed. It was true. He had no choice. The boy couldn't stay here, and Bella didn't have time for a child. There was no one who wanted an emaciated runaway. He had no choice but to turn the brat over to the proper authorities, and that meant Corporal Selkirk. Still, he couldn't help wishing there was some other way. He knew what would happen. The boy would panic, and struggle, and Riza would watch while the glorified policeman dragged her new friend away. She would know it was his fault, and she would hate him. Mordred didn't share Bella's optimistic view that she would forgive him.

He wasn't sure he would forgive himself.

"Of course..." the physician said. Then she shook her head. "Never mind. Shall I go for Selkirk, or will you?"

"No, what were you going to say?" Mordred exhaled.

"I was going to say..." Bella tilted her head to one side, and said softly, "There's more than enough love in this house to spare."

Mordred looked at her. "I can't," he said. What surprised him was that the regret with which he spoke was genuine. "Lian..."

He stopped. Lian hadn't had one of her spells in five days. He hadn't had to drug her once. She was defensive, and irritable, and adamant that the boy wasn't going to stay with them, but she wasn't lost in the abyss of despair that had seemed to engulf her these last few months.

"Riza's so independent and self-assured," he said, half to himself. "And Davell... he was so..."

Isabella nodded in understanding. "He needed her," she said. "He wasn't well, always ill, always bullied because he was different. He relied on her in a way that Riza never has and never will."

Mordred nodded. "And she needed that. She needs that." He gestured impotently. "But she doesn't want him any more than I do."

"She might not want him," said Greyson; "but I think he'd be good for her."

Mordred stiffened, aware that he was being manipulated. "I'm not replacing my son with that... that..."

"No one is asking you to do that," Bella said. "But Riza loves him, and taking care of him is providing Lian with a distraction that she sorely needs. Besides, some better arrangement will turn up: all it needs is a little time."

"I suppose," he said; "if it's only temporary."

Bella smiled and kissed him to the left of his nose. "You're a good man, Hawkeye-sensei," she said. "I have a remedy downstairs that I want you to give him. It's a vile-tasting concoction that is supposed to get rid of the worms without flushing his whole system."

Mordred groaned a little. "It's a wonder there's any boy left to treat," he said. "Lian used the last of the chrysanthemum oil this morning, too."

"I brought more," the doctor said. "And I've ordered some limes from South City."

"_Limes_?" echoed the alchemist.

"For the scorbutus," Bella said. "I'll write out better instructions for feeding him."

"Instructions?" Mordred parroted, feeling absolutely ridiculous.

The doctor nodded. "I want you to give him a raw egg every morning, and another before he goes to bed. Plenty of milk, as many dark vegetables as you can persuade him to eat. No rich foods, nothing too sweet or fatty. Only a little meat at any one meal. Nothing salted or smoked. No fish at all. And half a pint of porter in the evening."

This time, Mordred laughed aloud. "Half a pint of porter? You want me to turn him into a drunk!"

"It's good for his heart," Bella said. There was a fit of laughter in the other room: Riza's clarion giggle, and a hoarse, barking chuckle that must have come from Roy. "Almost as good for his heart as she is," Greyson commented softly.

"This is only a stopgap," Mordred warned her. But he wondered if Bella believed him. He wasn't entirely sure he believed it himself.

_discidium_

The days stretched into a week, and then into a fortnight. The boy, Roy Mustang, became quietly, but inexorably, a part of the household. He slept on the floor in the parlour, and wore Mordred's old shirts like smocks. He ate with the family at the kitchen table, and he followed Riza around like a puppy. It wasn't right to say that he played with her, exactly, but he was a perpetual audience. Sometimes he would contribute some quiet comment, but for the most part he would watch her and react as he thought she wanted him to. This arrangement suited Riza just fine. She was exceedingly fond of "her boy", and she never gave him a moment to himself.

Lian fed the child as the doctor had suggested, rubbed oil into the scabies-riddled skin twice a day, and kept the second-hand shirts clean. Beyond that, she would have nothing to do with the boy. She would not even speak to him unless she needed to give him a direct instruction, and she refused to watch him playing with Riza. For the most part she ignored him, which seemed to be fine with Roy.

Mordred watched all of this with a clinician's eye, studying the new dynamics that this stranger brought to his house. Lian was not happy, but neither was she treading the fine line between control and hysteria. As for Riza... she was engaged and amused and content. The only thing that smarted was that now she had a playmate, she had much less desire to spend time with her father. He tried to tell himself that he was not hurt by this. After all, he had his work, and his research demanded a great deal of his attention.

As for Roy, he was starting to grow accustomed to living in the house. He was warm and clean, well fed for the first time that he could remember, and he liked spending time with Riza. The little girl's capacity for play astounded him, and he found it a little overwhelming, but he was quite content to take cues from her and do as she said. The man—Hawkeye-sensei—was seldom seen except at mealtimes, for he spent much of his day in the study working on what Riza called "his alchemy". The woman—Mrs. Hawkeye—had very little to say to him. Riza with her enchanting smile and her endless conversation was his only social contact, and his hungry soul drank in her attention as the roots of a parched willow drink in the water of an autumn rainstorm.

Thus, for a little while, there was peace in the Hawkeye house.


	8. The Visitor

**Chapter 7: The Visitor**

Riza could hardly contain her excitement. She bounced on her chair, almost spilling her milk. "When is he coming?" she asked eagerly, for the fourth time since breakfast.

Mrs. Hawkeye tied off the little blonde braid. "Very soon," she promised. "You have to be patient."

"But I'm unpatient!" Riza said. "I want him to come right now! Why is the train so slow?"

Riza's grandfather was coming to visit. Hawkeye-sensei had received a telegram two days ago announcing that his father-in-law was coming out from Central, and since then Riza had talked of nothing else. Roy didn't understand her enthusiasm. He was apprehensive about the idea of having another adult to worry about.

"Central is very far away," Mrs. Hawkeye said. Then she let out a sharp "_tsk!_" and caught Roy by the arm. "What did I say?" she demanded.

Roy froze, casting his eyes down into his lap in hangdog shame. He had half of his bread in his hand, and had been unconsciously trying to secret it under the shirt he wore. Mrs. Hawkeye pried the food from his grip and set it firmly back on the plate in front of him. Then she dealt his wrist a quick, punitive smack.

"What did I say?" she repeated sternly.

"If you don't eat it, leave it," Roy whispered.

"That's right," the adult said. "No hoarding. If you're hungry later, the food will still be here. Why is that such a hard concept?"

Roy didn't know how to answer that question. He laid his skinny hands in his lap and stared at them. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he said softly, hoping the matter would end there. He was afraid of Riza's mother, and her reprimands always made his stomach feel strange and wriggly.

"I take it you aren't going to finish your dinner?" she went on, pointing at the bread and vegetables still on the plate. "I've never seen a child like you. It's unnatural."

She took the food away, and Roy swallowed a yelp of protest. He sighed. He was still hungry. He didn't know why he had been trying to hide the bread, but it wasn't because he was finished eating. He just... he was used to saving food, what Mrs. Hawkeye called "hording". He had learned the hard way that you could never guarantee that you would find something to eat at night, or the next day, or even in any given week. He was conditioned to hide food, and it was a hard habit to break.

"I'm finished _my_ dinner," Riza said. "Is Grandfather coming now?"

Mrs. Hawkeye sighed in annoyance. "I'll tell you what, if you promise not to leave our yard, you can go and sit on the front stoop and wait for him."

"I promise!" Riza said sunnily. She hopped off of her chair and got as far as the kitchen door before she stopped and turned back, beckoning to Roy. "Come on," she said.

Roy braced himself against the table, and slipped to the ground with care. Unlike Riza's sturdy ones, his own emaciated legs wouldn't always hold him up if he demanded too much of them.

Mrs. Hawkeye coughed pointedly. "What do you _say_?" she said, a vague warning in her voice.

Roy swallowed hard. "May I be excused, ma'am?" he recited carefully.

"Yes," said the lady. "Don't get dirty."

Roy shook his head. He didn't _want_ to get dirty, and yet she gave him this warning every time he went outside. He supposed it was because she knew that he was really a no-good, dirty gutter brat.

Riza led the way through the corridor and out the front door. The sun was nearly overhead, and there was only a small strip of shade right next to the house. The two children sat down on the stoop, and Riza stretched out her legs until the toes of her 

neat brown shoes were in the sun. Roy pulled his knees up towards his chest, and tucked his heels onto the same step that he was sitting on, then wrapped his arms around his calves.

"Grandfather is my favourite," Riza said. "His whiskers are tickly. He likes to play the Fuhrer, and I'm a special soldier. An' he brings presents! I love presents. I can't wait to show you to him! When he comes, Momma's gonna make a special supper, and Papa'll eat at the table, and I'll tell him all 'bout Davell. Grandfather likes hearing 'bout Davell. Then he'll read me a story, and then he'll read me _ten_ stories!'

She went on happily enumerating the various virtues of her Grandfather, and Roy listened quietly. He had learned that there was no end to Riza's capacity for conversation. It welled up in a constant, unedited stream that flitted from sentence to sentence with amazing rapidity. Sometimes it was even a little overwhelming, but he didn't really mind. It was... nice.

She was talking about Davell again. Roy was puzzled by Davell. He was a boy who seemed to live in the house. There was Davell's room, and Davell's tree, Davell's toys and Davell's picture, and yet Roy had never seen Davell. Neither Hawkeye-sensei nor Mrs. Hawkeye ever spoke about him, and Riza never seemed to talk about him around either of them. It was all very strange. Maybe when Riza's grandfather came, Davell would come out of hiding. Roy wasn't sure if he liked that idea very much: boys were bullies.

Suddenly, Riza let out a whoop of delight. "Grandfather! Grandfather!" she cried, springing to her feet. She ran two steps down the walk, then doubled back to grab Roy's wrist. "Come on, it's Grandfather!" she exclaimed, pointing.

She tugged on him, and Roy stood, raising his head to look. A man was striding forward down the road from the village. He had a canvas kit back on his shoulder, and a merry smile peeked from under a well-groomed golden moustache heavily streaked with grey. Roy didn't see the smile. All he saw was the uniform.

A band of terror constricted his heart. He balked.

"Come on!" Riza said happily, tugging on his arm.

Inertia was on her side, but desperation was on his. Roy wrenched free and turned to flee. He tripped, scraping his keen on the gravel of the path, but he scrambled to his feet again without even noticing. He ran past Mrs. Hawkeye, who was coming out the door, and sped into the house. He banked hard to turn into the parlour, where his blanket and pillow were piled neatly on the sofa, and squeezed his thin body between the sideboard and the wall. The heavy piece of furniture was angled across a corner of the room, and after a little wriggling, Roy managed to reach the triangle of clear floor.

It was very dusty, and his throat tickled at once, but he held his breath and hugged himself, trying to calm down. He had to stay hidden. He had to stay quiet. The man outside was in the military! He would drag Roy off to the state orphanage! Roy couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't go! Not ever. Not even if they shot him!

He realized that he was crying. He rubbed his eyes with the shorn sleeve of the shirt he wore. That was no good. Crying never helped anybody.

_discidium_

Major J. Leslie Grumman dropped his kit bag on the slightly overgrown lawn and held out his arms to catch his granddaughter, who was barrelling towards him.

"Riza!" he said, hoisting her up and tossing her into the air. "How's my sweetpea?"

Riza laughed as he caught her, and threw her short arms around his neck. "I knew your whiskers were tickly!" she accused.

"That's right, they're my weapon of choice," he said, shaking his head so that his facial hair brushed to and fro across her cheek. Riza laughed merrily, and already he could feel the daily fatigue of his regimented life falling away. He shifted her to a more comfortable position in his arms, and studied her face thoughtfully. "You're quite the little lady now, aren't you?"

"I'm three!" Riza announced, demonstrating with her hand.

"And I'm forty-nine," Grumman said solemnly. "Can you show that on your fingers?"

Her pink mouth formed a perplexed "o" for a moment, and then she grinned. "I only got ten fingers," she said.

"Well, I have fifty," he told her. "I keep my spare arms in my other pants."

"You do not!" she laughed. "You're teasing!"

"Lian," Grumman said fondly, shifting Riza's weight to one side so that he could embrace his daughter with his free arm. "How are you, love?"

"Fine, Father, just fine," Lian said, but though she was smiling her voice lacked conviction. She bent to pick up his abandoned luggage. "How was your journey?"

"Long and dull," Grumman confessed. "And you should have seen that corporal of yours jump when _I_ stepped off the train! That poor sap has had more surprise inspections than any country policeman in the region. I almost feel sorry for him."

"Is that why you came out here on such short notice?" Lian asked. "To check up on Jim Selkirk?"

Leslie chuckled and pinched her cheek—which he noticed was not as soft as it once had been. "You ask too many questions, my dear. Never you mind why I'm here. I love you, and I want to visit with my family. Isn't that enough?"

"_I_ want you to visit!" Riza said. "I want you to visit for a hundred, hundred years!"

Grumman jiggled her fondly. "Wish I could, sweetpea," he said. Then to Lian; "Now, I suppose that alchemist husband of yours won't speak to me 'til I've changed out of my togs?"

Lian flushed a little. "Mordred really does like you, Father..." she muttered.

"Not really," Grumman said brightly. He harboured no illusions about his son-in-law. Mordred Hawkeye was forced to respect him as an honest man and as the father of his wife, but he didn't like him, and even the respect wasn't forthcoming when Grumman was decked out like a military lackey. Mordred had strong republican sentiments—sentiments that in a less gifted man might have negated any such visit as this, and that in a more outspoken man might have proved dangerous.

Wanting to change the subject, Grumman turned his head to Riza. "Have you got a visitor, sweetpea?" he asked, remembering the boy who had torn off into the house as he had drawn near.

"Yup!" said Riza. "You came to visit!"

Grumman laughed. "No, I mean your little friend."

"Oh!" Riza said. "That's my boy. He lives in the parlour. He used to live in our hedge, but then Papa did his alchemy."

The major turned a puzzled eye upon his daughter. Lian pursed her lips. "Mordred has him living here," she said. "Temporarily. He has no parents, and for some reason Mordred doesn't want to send him off to East City."

"I wouldn't send a dog to East City," Grumman said grimly. If the boy had no parents, then the only alternative if no one wanted him was to send him off to one of the state orphanages. He couldn't blame Mordred for balking at that protests: republican or not, there were some things that the military just wasn't handling well. But of course, nothing that a single major could fix.

Lian exhaled enormously. "Well, you can change in Davell's room: you'll sleep there, as usual. He'll bed down on the sofa in the parlour."

Grumman paused, scrutinizing his daughter's brown face with care. "Who?" he asked warily. "Who will bed down on the sofa?"

"My boy, Grandfather," Riza said. "Weren't you listening? He lives in the parlour."

"Of course, Riza," Grumman said, feigning jocularity. "I forgot: I'm getting old!"

He tried to study Lian's eyes, but she was already heading into the house.

_discidium_

"Boy? Where are you?" Riza called. "Roy the boy? Where are you hiding?"

Grumman came down the stairs, now innocuous (and comfortable!) in brown corduroy trousers and white shirtsleeves, to find his granddaughter in the corridor, turning around with a very perplexed expression on her face.

"I can't find him!" she said unhappily. "I can't find my boy."

"Well, maybe he's in the kitchen," Grumman said.

"I _checked _the kitchen!" Riza cried. "He's gone!"

"Don't worry, we'll find him," the major promised. "You looked in the kitchen? What about upstairs?"

"I checked my room, and Momma's," Riza said. "_You_ were in Davell's room."

"Yes, and your boy wasn't."

"I checked the kitchen, an' I checked outside," Riza went on, obviously distressed. "Papa's in his study, an' he says he hasn't seen him."

"What about the parlour?" asked Grumman. "You said he lives there, didn't you?"

"Yes, but he's not allowed to play in there," Riza said. "He just lives there."

"Well, let's look there."

The room seemed deserted. There was an old blanket and a limp-looking pillow on Lian's sofa, but no other signs of the room's purported inhabitant.

"Check under the chairs," Leslie suggested, studying the mantelpiece. A fine layer of dust covered all of the picture frames but one: the image of his broadly smiling grandson. So Lian was still offering her nightly prayers for the dead. He had never had much use for his wife's religious fervour and had not taken the trouble to learn the intricacies of Ishbalan rites. He did, however, know that Mynda's ritual mourning for their second daughter, Lian's stillborn sister, had only lasted four weeks. He remembered because he had almost celebrated on the day that the lithograph of the tiny, desiccated mummy could finally be hidden away forever.

"He's not here!" Riza said desolately. "I think he ran away. He's a very scared boy, Grandfather, and I think..."

A sneeze rang out from behind the sideboard, followed by three more in rapid succession. Grumman wiggled his eyebrows. "I think we've found him," he said, moving towards the heavy piece of furniture. He peered over it, and a small, white face stared up at him. The boy had the emaciated look of an invalid and the shorn head of a prisoner. He was wearing one of Mordred's old shirts, the sleeves cut to size, and his bare feet peeked out from beneath it. His eyes, though they had the narrow, sloping look of a foreigner, seemed enormous in his wasted face as he stared up in fright, and his face was streaked with dirt where he had tried to rub away his tears with a dusty hand.

"Well, now. How do you do?" Leslie said with a friendly smile. "I'm Riza's grandfather. "Why don't you come out?"

He grabbed the sideboard and slid it a little, opening a path for the boy to come out. The child studied him apprehensively.

"Come on," Riza urged. "You gotta wash your face: it's all dirty!"

The boy raised a hand to his cheek, and then got shakily to his feet. Mordred's shirt fell down around his calves. The poor little thing was practically swimming in it. Grumman couldn't blame his son-in-law at all for refusing to ship the kid to a state orphanage. He was already half starved: he wouldn't last a month.

"I'm pleased to meet you," he said kindly, holding out his hand. "Riza and I were just about to read a story. Would you care to join us?"

The boy hesitated, looking warily from Grumman to Riza and back. He studied the major's civilian garb carefully, then glanced at the door. Timidly, he put out one skinny hand and, instead of shaking as Grumman expected, gripped the man's fingers forcefully.

With Riza holding one hand and the boy holding the other, Grumman led his audience back upstairs to his granddaughter's room. It was storytime.


	9. Unacceptable Proposals

**Chapter 8: Unacceptable Proposals**

"She's fast asleep," Major Grumman said, coming into the kitchen and seating himself at the table. Lian had her basket of mending out, and was darning one of her stockings. "I wish you had written to tell me about Roy," he told her. "I would have brought him something."

"He has clothes to wear, good food to eat—when he bothers to eat it—and a safe place to sleep," Lian said, squinting as she wove the needle in and out against the wooden egg. "He doesn't need presents."

"He's a little boy," said the Major. "Of course he needs presents." He pushed his round spectacles further up on his nose. "I suppose I could give him the primer. Riza's only three, after all, and he's what? Five?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Lian said noncommittally.

"Forgive me, my dear, but you don't seem very happy with this arrangement," said Grumman, cautiously testing the waters.

"I'm not," Lian said shortly. "I have quite enough to do without looking after another child—and an ill-mannered, sickly, dirty, malingering one at that."

"He seems like a nice boy," he said. "Quiet. _Very_ quiet. Not much trouble at all."

Lian rolled her crimson eyes heavenwards. "You let him listen while you read to Riza," she said. "_I_ spent two weeks rubbing chrysanthemum into his scabies welts."

Grumman smiled. For a moment there, his daughter had almost sounded like herself again. From an early age it had been obvious that she had inherited her mother's fiery spirit and sharp tongue. His last two visits, however, had shown him a very different creature. When he had come out for the funeral, she had spent all of her time weeping quietly and lying on her bed staring at the window. Four months ago, at New Year's, she had been almost catatonic, going through her daily routine without zeal or joy. At least now, she seemed more reactive, and though he was still anxious about her mental state, that was certainly an improvement.

"I'm sorry about supper," Lian said. "I was going to do up a side of lamb, but Mordred's working, and he says tomorrow will be better."

"I didn't come out here to eat four-course meals," Grumman said. "I think Riza was a little disappointed at having to wait, though. I gather you didn't celebrate her birthday this year."

There was only the smallest hint of reproach in his voice, but Lian picked up on it and shot him a quelling look. "We have nothing to celebrate this year," she said coldly.

A silence elapsed. Grumman sighed and rose. "I'm going to go and see Mordred," he said.

"He's working. He won't want to be interrupted," Lian said.

"He's been working all day. He can use a break." Leslie moved into the corridor and moved towards the closed door of the study. He took a moment to peek into the parlour, where Roy lay curled up on the sofa. With his eyes closed and his pinched little face relaxed in repose, he looked even younger than he did while awake. Poor thing: Grumman hadn't questioned him, but it was obvious from his deplorable physical condition and his skittish demeanour that he had been through far more than any child should have to suffer.

The major moved away and rapped lightly on the door to his son-in-law's sanctum. A distracted grunt was all the invitation he needed to enter.

"Good evening, Hawkeye-sensei," he said, closing the door behind him.

Mordred was sitting at his desk. He had an enormous piece of paper spread over it, and he was working with pen and ink on some sort of elaborate image. When Grumman spoke, he turned in his seat with a surprised exhalation.

"Father-in-law," he said coolly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I've kissed my daughter, put my granddaughter to bed, and had the pleasure of meeting the newest addition to the family," Grumman said. "I felt it only fair to pay my respects to the head of the household."

Mordred sighed, drawing his hand across his brow. "I'm sorry that I didn't come out to greet you. It was rude of me, but I have a great deal of work to do, and—"

"I understand completely," the soldier assured him. "I didn't come here to disrupt your studies."

"Forgive me for asking, but why _did_ you come here?" asked the alchemist.

Grumman moved to the other side of the room, where there was a second chair, albeit buried underneath a heap of books. He lifted the tomes carefully to the ground, and moved the chair to sit beside Mordred's desk. "I brought Riza her birthday presents," he said. "I surprised your local corporal out of his skin. I've read forty-five pages of G.G. Gunhold's _Collected Works for Children_. So far, it's been a very productive trip."

"None of that is worth making a last-minute trip from Central," Mordred observed. In a manner that was obviously meant to look casual but in fact was anything but, he slid a sheaf of loose papers over the drawing, obscuring it from sight.

"We can discuss it later," Grumman said. "I want to talk about my daughter."

"Lian? She's fine."

The major frowned. "Is she?"

For a moment, the two men looked one another in the eye. They had different views about politics, science, and the nature of the universe, but they had one thing in common. They both loved Lian. Mordred's stoic demeanour crumbled with a weary sigh.

"No," he said. "She misses Davell terribly. She's been having trouble sleeping—not the last couple of weeks, really, but four or five times a week before that. She can't bear it if Riza talks about Davell. I don't understand it. I miss him. Damn it, he was my son too, but she's still... it's like he died yesterday."

Grumman hesitated, momentarily unsure whether to mention what he had noticed. Then he decided he had to. When he went back to Central, Mordred was going to have to cope with the situation on his own. He had to have all of the facts.

"I noticed that there are moments when she doesn't seem to realize that he's dead at all," he said softly.

Any composure the alchemist had retained crumbled suddenly. "God, you see it too?" he moaned, cradling his head in his hands. "It's like she thinks he's just in the other room, or off at school, or playing by the bluffs. It's worse than the tears. I'd do anything to have her crying for him again instead of... of this. I think... I think she might..."

He couldn't say it. His mouth contorted horribly as he tried to force out the words, but to no avail. Grumman sighed. "You're afraid she might be going mad," he said.

Mordred flinched and nodded. "If I could fix her... I can save the life of a woman who's had a breech birth. I can make a spyglass out of a hunk of copper and some sand. If I wanted too, I could lay a whole city waste in a matter of minutes. And I can't fix my wife." He inhaled raggedly. "I'd do anything; pay any price to help her."

"I know that," said Grumman. "I take it you've been talking to your village sawbones?"

"Bella Greyson," said the alchemist. "She's good."

"I'm sure she is, but there are other doctors, people who specialize in maladies of the mind. The military retains—"

"I'm not letting any military lackeys near my wife!" Mordred snapped, forgetting himself briefly. "If she needs... that kind of care, I'll find someone with a private practice."

"And how will you pay for it?" asked Grumman practically. "The gossip in town is that you haven't been taking pupils."

"I have a pupil," Mordred said in annoyance. "He's just off in East City right now, helping his uncle."

"Apprenticed to his uncle," corrected the soldier. "He's going to be a blacksmith, not an alchemist." When Mordred snorted, Grumman backed off. "It doesn't matter to me whether you take pupils or not," he said. "I just want you to think practically about what you'll do if Lian needs more care than you and a country GP can handle. You can always count on my help."

"She doesn't—she doesn't need that yet," Mordred said. "I don't want to rush things. She needs time, that's all."

"It's been almost ten months," Grumman pointed out. "Most mothers—"

"Well, Lian's _not_ most mothers! You were married to one of them: you know they're different. They think too much. They pray too much. It isn't healthy."

"Neither is sequestering yourself away from your family drawing pretty pictures," Grumman commented dryly. He got to his feet. "I don't want you to rush things. Just think about it."

"Wait." Mordred looked up, stopping the major's retreat with the single syllable. "Why are you here?"

Leslie shook his head. "It can wait 'til tomorrow. You have work to do."

He left the study, closing the door carefully behind him.

_discidium_

Though Mordred hoped to evade whatever confrontation was coming, it was easier said than done. The following day after the "special supper", as Riza called it, he retreated to his study, leaving Lian and Grumman to take care of the children. Riza had an assortment of pretty presents: a wooden picture-puzzle, a brightly painted ball-and-cup, three beautifully illustrated story books, and a set of tin soldiers carefully lacquered to look just like the real thing. These were ostensibly birthday gifts, but all three adults knew that they were only evidence of the major's desire to pamper his only grandchild.

Roy Mustang had not been left out, either. Grumman had given him an exquisitely engraved primer, which the boy had still been holding reverently in his lap when Mordred had beaten his retreat.

His _useless_ retreat, for once the children were settled in for the night, there came a soft tap on the door, and Leslie came in.

"I'm busy," Mordred said, though he knew the protestation was an ineffectual one.

"I'll be brief," Grumman said. He took a leather folio from under his arm and set it on the desk. "This is a commission, signed by Fuhrer President McFarland himself. It's contingent upon an informal assessment, and would waive the usual examination procedure. I came out here, because they wanted someone to deliver it personally."

Mordred stared at the folio in disbelief. "_What?_"

"It seems that news of your little fireworks show at New Year's reached the ears of some very important people," said the older man. "They want you as a state alchemist. Arrangements could be made for you to continue to work here, your research would be fully funded—"

"And I would be a dog of the military," Mordred spat. "A human weapon. A machine of murder." He picked up the folio and hurled it against the door, then glared at his father-in-law with loathing in his pale eyes. "I thought you were a good man," he snarled. "But you've ratted me out to the military? Don't you know what that could mean for Lian and Riza? You son of a bitch—"

"Hold on!" Leslie snapped, anger in his own eyes now. "Let's get one thing straight. _I_ didn't say anything about your research. I've never even told anyone at Headquarters what you do for a living. It's not my place, it's none of my business, and yes, I _do_ know what it could mean for my daughter and my grandbaby. This is _your _fault, Mordred Hawkeye, not mine!"

"My fault?" Mordred choked.

"You can't go around shooting fireballs into the sky above the village green and not expect word to get back to Central!" Grumman cried. "Any of the damned villagers could have gossiped to a family member, a friend—word gets to Central—Haman and his lackeys have ways of confirming rumours like that. It's their business."

Mordred's scowl deepened, but the rancour was shifting from his father-in-law. Grumman seemed as troubled by this "invitation" as he was. And it was true, it wasn't the kind of thing that the honest, honourable man would do. He knew Mordred's sentiments about the military regime. He wouldn't try to turn him over to General Haman and his state alchemists...

"So you think that's what happened?" he asked.

"No," said Grumman shortly. "I think that it was Corporal Selkirk. He's not an idiot—well, yes, he is, but he's not a politically stupid idiot. He knows how to please the higher-ups. I wouldn't put it past him to file a report on an alchemist whose work would have such obvious use to the military."

"What am I going to do?" Mordred asked, deflating a little in despair. There was no way out. The military had ways of making life very hard for people who turned down "offers" like these; in reality they were little more than draft notices. He wasn't afraid for himself: he would rather die than turn himself into a harbinger of Armageddon, but he had a family to consider.

"You're going to sign this," Grumman said, crossing to the heap of scattered papers and casting about until he found the one he was looking for. "It's a letter stating that due to the recent death of your son, and your wife's subsequent ill health, your research is on hold, _etcetera, etcetera, _and you are unable to accept any such position at this time. I've already run it past a friend of mine, a well-known military lawyer. I can trust him. He's assured me it's a valid affidavit of incapability. They won't like it, but they'll have to accept it."

Mordred stared at the paper. "You did this... for me?" he asked, a little shocked. He had never really liked Lian's father, and he knew that the older man knew it. Yet here he was, putting his career on the line to speak out against a draft order signed by the Fuhrer himself, so that Mordred wouldn't have to choose between his liberty and his beliefs.

"I did it for all of us," Grumman said. At the alchemist's shocked look, he grinned lopsidedly. "We're not friends, Hawkeye-sensei, but we are family. We watch each other's backs."

Mordred wasn't sure what to say. He ran a pensive hand to and fro over his chin. "Thanks," he grunted gruffly.

"My pleasure," Leslie said. He opened the door, stepping carefully over the strewn contract. "I'd pick those up if I were you," he suggested. Then he was gone.

_discidium_

With a small sigh of relief, Grumman closed the study door. That had, all things considered, gone over much better than he had hoped. He suspected that the alchemist had a short fuse, and wouldn't take kindly to the news that he had been, no pun intended, playing with fire. Grumman understood that the New Year's display had been a cathartic thing for Mordred: a chance to focus his energies on something other than his dead son and his grieving wife. And it had been a spectacular show...

At least now, the matter was settled. Mordred was safe from the military hunting hounds, and life could go on as it had been. Grumman laughed a little, bitterly. A man of Mordred's convictions and abilities could accomplish a lot in the military, but the other side of the coin was that the military could do a lot of damage if a man of Mordred's abilities wavered in those convictions even a little bit.

Suddenly, the soldier was aware that he was being watched. He squinted into the darkened parlour, but he couldn't quite make out the shape of the little boy. He moved into the room and reached for the gas, but the lamp was not lit. He didn't even look for a match: there were never matches in his son-in-law's house. He returned to the corridor and turned up the lamp so that its light spilled into the other room.

Sure enough, Roy was sitting bolt upright on the sofa, watching the door with terror in his eyes. The poor thing must have heard the shouting, Grumman thought guiltily. What a lovely way to wake up in the middle of the night.

"Well, good evening!" he said pleasantly, coming into the room and sitting himself down next to the child's feet. "Trouble sleeping?"

Roy nodded. "I... I heard a noise," he said softly. They were practically the first words he had spoken to Grumman, if one didn't count the prompted thanks for the gift of the primer.

"Hawkeye-sensei dropped some papers," the adult explained. "He was somewhat perturbed."

"Oh," the child breathed. "I thought..."

He didn't say what he thought, but shook his poor, shorn head and hugged himself. There was something strange about the shape of his chest under the cast-off nightshirt he was wearing. Grumman reached into the gaping neck of the adult garment, and drew out the book that he had given the boy at supper. "Well, now," he said in amusement. "What's this?"

The child watched desolately as his new treasure was drawn from his fingers. "It's mine," he said mournfully, heartbreaking disappointment on his face.

He thought it was being taken away, Grumman realized. He thought that the giver had changed his mind, and come to take back the gift. Quickly, he picked up one bony hand and set it firmly on the leather cover. "So it is," he said. "It's all yours. Would you like me to read it to you?"

The boy hugged the book to his chest again, fingering the beautifully ribbed binding. He nodded. Clumsily, he got out from beneath the blanket and climbed into Grumman's lap as he had seen Riza do countless times in the last thirty-six hours. The major wrapped one arm around the skinny body, and helped the child open the book.

" '_A_' _is for apple, so shiny and sweet,_" he read, taking care to pause so that the boy could study the beautiful pictures. _" 'B' is for bear, with berries to eat. 'C' is for cat, who plays with a string. 'D' is for dragon..._"

By the time he reached " _'P' is for peppermint, bright in a jar.._.", the child was a dead weight on his lap, his skull-like head resting against Grumman's shoulder. He was fast asleep.

Carefully, the soldier settled the child's head on his battered pillow and drew up the blankets around him. As an afterthought, he took the primer and tucked it under Roy's arm.

A son-in-law saved from the long arm of General Haman, and two children happily put to bed. Grumman smiled to himself. It had been a productive evening.


	10. A Question of Age

**Chapter 9: A Question of Age**

Bella Greyson's eager smile greeted Mordred when he opened the door.

"I found him!" she said. "I found Roy."

"What?" Mordred looked over his shoulder. Riza and Lian had gone to take Major Grumman to the train station, and Mordred had just left the boy in the kitchen.

The physician held up a brown envelope bearing a broken military seal. "His birth records," she explained. "I managed to track them down."

"How?" asked Mordred, ushering her into the house.

The doctor's smile wavered. "He spent eight weeks in the state orphanage in East City," she said. "It was the first thing I checked. Getting the actual documents was a little harder, but I'll show you."

They moved into the kitchen, where Roy almost smiled when he saw who the visitor was. The doctor smiled at him, but uncharacteristically said nothing. She sat down and removed a sheaf of papers from the envelope.

"He was born in Youswell," she said. "The twelfth of October, 1885."

"Youswell? A miner's brat."

"Not exactly," the physician told him. "When I found that out, I wired the military doctor stationed there to see if he might have any family left in the area. His parents weren't miners, they were tailors, and they weren't from Youswell; that was just where they happened to be when he was born."

Roy didn't seem to realize they were discussing him. He sat quietly, looking at the sugar bowl as if it were a very fascinating puzzle.

"Is that important?" Mordred asked.

"I promised I would try to find someone to take him," Bella said mildly. "A long-lost uncle would have been easiest. Anyhow, the 

records of the mine surgeon at the time list the parents' residence as Greywater. It's an interesting coincidence, because I actually did my postgraduate apprenticeship with Doctor Yelland in Greywater. Lovely little town."

"So you contacted Doctor Yelland?" Mordred said.

"Yes, and he had no records of them at all, and no recollection of any family by the name of Mustang living anywhere in the area. So I contacted Eastern Headquarters, and asked for the official death records for the names listed on his birth certificate." She produced two almost identical documents. "Maya and Pol Mustang. Both deceased on the same date: the twenty-second of March, 1890. Cause of death was a fire at their home in Grishmore."

"Never heard of it," Mordred said.

"It's a tiny community so far east that it's practically in the desert," said Bella. "It's one of the laundering communities on the way to Lior."

"Laundering communities?" Mordred echoed.

"For illegal immigrants," said the physician. "If they can make it across the desert from Xing—which not many can—they settle in debatable little backwaters without military outposts. When it's time for their children to be born, they travel to a larger community where they aren't recognized. The baby is born near a physician or a registrar, and receives an Amestrian birth certificate. The parents can then use that as proof of their own citizenship: a lot of people of our generation haven't got their original documents. His parents were probably foreign, with a family name of Miu Tzang, or something."

"And?"

"And nothing. That was the end of my search. There's no point trying to find his family: it's highly unlikely that he has any left, at least in Amestris."

Mordred grunted. It made sense when stated like that, and Bella's inferences also explained the boy's inky black hair and sloping eyes. He picked up the copied birth record.

"This date can't be right," he said. "It should be 1887, not 1885. There's no way that he's coming eight."

"That's what I thought, too," said Isabella. "Roy, be a dear and open up." She cupped his chin in her hand and tilted his head, pushing back his upper lip with the tip of her finger. "He hasn't got a seven-year-old's teeth," she said; "but they aren't a five-year-old's teeth either. Honey, do you know how old you are?"

Roy bit his lip, his brow furrowing in thought. "S-ev-en, I'm seven," he said slowly, as if the piece of information was stored in some little-used recess of his mind. "Riza is three."

"How do you know how old you are?" the doctor asked kindly.

"The winter," the boy answered quietly. "I used to have a birthday. Then the snow would come."

"You used to have a birthday?" Mordred parroted, puzzled.

"I see," said Bella. "So you know that when the snow comes you're a whole year older." She turned to the alchemist with a pleased smile. "He's a very smart boy, Mordred."

He wasn't convinced. "How many winters has it been since you had a birthday?" he demanded.

"Three," said the child.

"And how old were you when had one?"

"One more than Riza," Roy said, holding up four fingers.

"I still can't believe he's almost eight," Mordred grunted, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest. "Anyway, it doesn't make sense. You said he spent two months in East City, and if that was three years ago... it's just ridiculous. A five-year-old surviving three years alone?"

"Resourceful as well as clever," Bella said, smiling at Roy. "You've done very well, love."

The front door opened, and Riza's cheery voice rang out. "Boy? Come on, let's go and play outside! It's soooo sunny!"

She came running into the kitchen, stopping short when she saw the guest.

"Doctor Bella!" she exclaimed happily. "We took Grandfather to the train." She turned to Roy. "Come on, let's go play!"

Roy looked questioningly at Mordred, who waved him off. "Go and play," he said impatiently. "We'll call you if the doctor needs to look at you."

As the children left through the lean-to, Lian came in from the corridor. She, too, halted at the sight of the doctor, but she did not smile. "What do you want?" she asked.

"I found Roy's birth records," Isabella said, holding out the paper.

Lian looked at it. "Youswell?" she said. "Good. We can ship him back there: he's old enough to grub for coal."

"He's older than he thought," Mordred pointed out. "Almost eight. He should be in school."

Lian shot him a poisonous look. "So now we're responsible for his education, too?" she demanded.

"As long as he lives under our roof, yes we are," Mordred said in a tone that would not brook argument. "He can start on Monday. We have a slate and a reader already. There must be some shoes upstairs that will fit him. Davell never wore them out."

"He can't have my boy's shoes!" Lian snapped. "Let him go barefoot!"

Lian was city bred, and didn't understand the rigid caste system of a country school. Mordred shook his head. "No one living in my house is going barefoot to school," he said resolutely. "Davell doesn't need them anymore, and there's no sense in good shoes going to waste."

An argument was obviously brewing, and Bella Greyson was a tactful woman. "I'd like to have a look at his gums," she said, getting to her feet. "And then I really should be getting back to the surgery. You know where to find me when you need me."

She made her exit swiftly, through the back door. Lian rounded the table and leaned forward onto her fists.

"You're not putting my son's shoes on the feet of that repulsive little runt!" she said.

"Lian, be reasonable," Mordred said, forcing himself to resist the urge to growl back at her. "The cobbler won't come to town for another three weeks, and you know he never comes here first. It could be another month and a half before the boy will be able to go to school."

"I don't care!" she exclaimed. "I don't see why he should go to school at all. Now we know where he came from, we should send him back! He can earn his keep in Youswell: everyone knows they love skinny little beasts underground."

Mordred stood up, leaning forward himself so that they were practically nose-to-nose over the table. He hadn't been this angry with his wife in almost four years—not since she had tried to bully him into taking Davell's education in hand himself. "I let you say that once," he snarled; "because Bella was present. I'm not going to let you make any such disgusting suggestion again. The boy is going to school on Monday, and he will be wearing Davell's shoes. That's my last word on the matter."

He broke away from the table and strode across to the window. In the yard, Bella had Riza on one side, and Roy on the other. The three of them were laughing and turning in a circle. Roy tripped a little on the bottom of the trailing shirt that was still serving him as a smock.

"He'll need proper clothes, too," Mordred dictated. "Surely we have something that will fit him. If you won't go and find suitable things, then I will."

It was a statement, not a threat, but Lian's resolve crumbled with unexpected rapidity. "No, no, I'll do it," she said, almost fearfully. "The... the brown ones with the long laces. Davell outgrew them ages ago. I'm sure they'd fit."

"Good," Mordred said heartlessly. "I'm sure any of Davell's clothes will be too large, but at least they'll be an improvement over what he's wearing now."

Lian looked about to protest, but she decided against it. Angry but obviously defeated, she left the kitchen. Mordred turned back to the window, watching the children. The boy was hardly three inches taller than Riza. It scarcely seemed possible that he was almost eight.

_discidium_

"But I don't _want_ him to go to school!" Riza protested. "I want him to stay here and play with me."

Roy wanted to stay here, too, but he said nothing. He was not about to argue. Mrs. Hawkeye seemed very upset today.

"Put out your foot!" she said sharply, kneeling down next to his chair. Roy obeyed, and she rammed a baggy cotton sock over his heel, following it with a shoe. The stiff leather would not yield immediately to her wish, and Roy bit his lip as she pushed harder. With three quick flicks of her wrists, Mrs Hawkeye tied the shoestring into a neat bow. "Now the other one," she said. "He has to go to school, Riza: your father said so."

"Well, then _I_ can go to school, too," Riza said decisively.

"No you can't; you're too young," Mrs Hawkeye told her. She fixed her stern eyes on Roy. "When you get there, tell the teacher that you're new. If he asks where you're staying, tell him. If he wants to know your birthday, it's October 12. Here's the First Reader, this is Davell's slate, and here's a new slate pencil. Don't break it, because I'm not going to go into town to buy you another one. If I hear you've made any trouble, I'll wear you out with a wooden spoon. Now get out."

"But Momma, I want to go with my boy!" Riza exclaimed. She had made one too many protests, because Mrs. Hawkeye whirled on her.

"Go and play upstairs!" she barked angrily. "At once!"

Riza's eyes widened, and her mouth snapped closed. Roy had never seen the carefree little girl look so frightened before. She ran from the room.

"I said get out!" Mrs. Hawkeye cried, turning to see Roy staring at her. "Go on, get!"

He retreated into the lean-to and fumbled with the back door. As he left, he caught sight of Mrs. Hawkeye crumpling onto his vacated chair. She buried her face in her arms and began to shake with noiseless sobs.

Frightened and confused, Roy stepped into the early morning sunlight. He had a book and the slate in one arm, and a tin dinner pail and the long, white slate pencil in the opposite hand. He was wearing proper clothes: trousers and a shirt that, though still too large for him and hopelessly loose, were actually made to be worn by a child. And the shoes... he tried to wiggle his toes, but found that he could not. It had been a long time since he had worn shoes.

He looked helplessly around him. He didn't know where the school was, and he didn't dare go back into the house to ask. He moved towards the gate, and because he didn't know what else to do, he opened it and moved into the front yard.

He had to find the school, and surely it was in the village. He had seen schoolhouses before, even spent the night in one once. They were usually a little apart from teh rest of the town, and they were usually plain, whitewashed structures. He thought he knew what he was looking for, so he set out up the road. The shoes made his feet feel heavy and clumsy, and he felt exposed and endangered walking in the open. He knew this was how other children walked, but he was used to creeping and scurrying from shelter to shelter.

He reached the house nearest the Hawkeyes'. A grown girl was sweeping the porch. She smiled at him, and waved cheerfully. Roy was surprised. No one ever waved at him unless it was to chase him away.

She thought he was a normal child, he realized suddenly. He was wearing real clothes, and he was clean, and his hair was very short. He didn't look like a runaway: he looked like an ordinary boy. If he looked like one, maybe he could act like one...

"Good morning," he croaked out.

"Off to school?" the young lady asked. Roy nodded, and she winked at him. "Study hard," she warned.

Roy quickened his pace. His heart was racing. Why, that had been _easy_! He had always wondered what it felt like to be a normal child. Now he had tried it, and it was nice.

By the time he reached the village square, where all the shops were just stirring to life for the day, he was beginning to feel that this would not be so bad. He would go to school, just like all the other children, and at the end of the day he would go back to a house, just like they all did. He shifted the heavy reader a little, and stopped to look around.

"Roy?" A familiar voice made him turn. One of the shop doors was open, and Doctor Bella was looking out. Roy hurried towards her as quickly as his skinny legs would let him. She smiled. "You look a little lost."

"I don't know where the school is," he confessed softly, looking down at his feet.

"You're headed in the right direction," she promised. "It's just at the end of the lane. You can't miss it: there's a tree with a wooden swing, and a pair of benches. The school is white." She stepped back a little and looked him over. "It's nice to see you dressed properly," she said. "You're quite a handsome little boy."

She was praising him. Roy didn't know what to think. He had never had anyone talk to him the way that the doctor did. He was used to being upbraided, reviled and shouted at. This was something quite new. "I am?" he asked, nonplussed.

"All you need to say is 'thank you, Doctor Bella'," she said, sounding amused.

"Thank you, Doctor Bella," he parroted. He looked over his shoulder, down the lane that she had indicated as the way to the school.

The physician smiled sympathetically. "Would you like me to go with you?" she asked.

Roy did want that, very much, but he hesitated. Mrs. Hawkeye had given him very specific, though admittedly very bewildering instructions, and they had included no mention of Doctor Bella. "No," he said, then corrected himself quickly. "No, thank you."

"All right," the doctor said. "Have a good day."

Roy nodded. The doctor closed the door gently, and he set off again, this time with some idea of where he was going. As he walked, the gnawing anxiety returned. He wasn't like the other children, even though he now looked like them. They would sense the difference, and they would turn on him. He wished with all his heart that he was safe at the house, with Riza. He didn't understand why he had to go to school.

At the end of the lane, there was a large, empty lot. Beyond it stood a tree with a swing, around which several girls were clustered, giggling and talking animatedly. A crowd of boys were chasing each other around two benches. There was a little whitewashed building with a tin stovepipe peeking out of the wooden roof. Roy stopped, swallowing hard. It was the school.

While he was trying to gather the courage to step forward towards the other children, a woman in a plain calico frock came out of the schoolhouse. She had a heavy bell in her hand, and she rang it with conviction. The children began to stream in towards the door. Roy gnawed on his lip, and forced himself to move forward. He was afraid, but he had been afraid before and knew he would be afraid again. He had to do this.

It took more valour than most seven-year-olds possessed, but he walked down across the yard, drew a deep breath, and entered the squat white building.


	11. School

**Chapter 10: School**

Roy had hesitated too long: the other pupils were already seated when he entered. Three dozen pairs of eyes riveted onto him, eager to see who had come late.

The room was no different from any one of a hundred rural schools dotting the eastern frontiers, though Roy had no real basis for comparison. There were four rows of six desks, each of which could accommodate two students. The back of each bench formed the desk of the row behind it, and so the front row had no table, and the littlest pupils were obliged to balance their slates and books on their laps. The wall facing the class was painted black, and a wooden ledge was nailed to it to hold the chalk and erasers. A wood stove occupied the corner farthest from the entrance, and next to it was the broad table that served as the teacher's desk.

The woman in the plain dress was seated at the table, and she turned to look at Roy. "Good morning," she said. "You're new."

Roy nodded, watching the crowd of children out of the corner of his eye. The boys sat in the two rows nearest the door, and the girls in the other two. There were three pupils, a girl and two boys, in the front row. They were not much older than Riza. The biggest boys were eleven or twelve years old. The girls at the very back of the room looked almost the same age as the lady who had spoken to him.

"What's your name?" the woman asked.

"Roy," he breathed shyly.

"Well, come here so I can enter you in the register." She opened a red book, and uncapped a fountain pen.

Roy stepped nearer the desk, but was careful not to get too close. He ran over Mrs. Hawkeye's hurried instructions again. "Where's the teacher?" he asked timidly.

Somebody giggled, and the lady gave him a strange look. "I'm the teacher," she said, almost condescendingly.

That wasn't right: Mrs. Hawkeye had said "he" and "him" when talking about the teacher. "I—I thought you were a man," Roy protested softly.

Snickers rippled through the room, and Roy flushed a little. He had said something stupid, but he didn't know what.

"No," the teacher said. "Mr. Martins left last term. I'm Miss Strueby. Now, what's your last name?"

"Mustang," Roy whispered.

"And how old are you?"

"Seven."

She made a note of it in the book before her. "What's your father's name?"

Roy had no answer: it wasn't a question for which Mrs. Hawkeye had prepared him. His lips quivered a little, and he glanced over his shoulder, wondering if he could make it to the door before she could grab him.

"Don't you have a father?" the teacher asked. One of the bigger boys snorted in amusement, but Roy shook his head gratefully.

One of the girls in the back raised her hand.

"Yes?" Miss Strueby said.

"I'll bet he's the boy staying with Hawkeye-sensei," the girl told her.

The teacher looked at Roy. "Is that true?"

He nodded.

"Fine. What class are you in?"

Roy didn't know the answer to this, either. He had never been to school, and he didn't understand how the pupils were organized. He looked at the girl who had raised her hand before, but either she had no answer, or she wasn't willing to share it. "I... I don't know," he said helplessly.

To his surprise, none of the other pupils seemed to find this comment stupid or funny. The teacher tilted her head to look at the book in his arms.

"All right," she said. "Put your dinner pail on the shelf at the back, and sit next to Dexter in the second row. Once I have a chance to hear you recite, you can always move up if you're ready."

Roy didn't know what she meant by that, but there was only one vacant place in the second row. He followed the teacher's instructions and sat down next to the sturdy blond boy, whom he presumed was Dexter. The seat was too high for him, and his feet dangled three inches over the floor, weighed down by the shoes.

The teacher went to the blackboard and started to write out lesson assignments for the day. "Mary, Lawrence and Tom, I want you to write out your big and small letter 'T's for me, and each of you should think of three words that starts with the t-t-t-'T' sound. First Reader, first class, please read page 25, 'There Was A Little Turtle'. First Reader, second class, I need you to read page 62 through 65 and answer the questions on page 66 on your slates. Second Reader, please start on grammar lesson 8. Third and Fourth Reader, continue with the arithmetic problems you were working on yesterday. Girls—" She smiled almost conspiratorially at the three eldest pupils. "—come up to the front, and I'll hear your history lessons."

Two of the big girls giggled a little, and chorused, "Yes, Miss Strueby."

All around him, the other pupils were opening books and licking slate pencils, but Roy didn't know what to do. He looked around desperately, but no one seemed to notice his confusion. The teacher's instructions were meaningless, except for the part about words with a t-t-t-'T' sound ('turnip', 'trouble' and 'train', he thought to himself).

"Psst! Page 25," hissed the boy sitting next to him. He pointed at his own reader, which was open to a page with a line drawing of a turtle sitting on a round stone.

Roy looked at it, and then at his own book. He opened it carefully, and turned to the first page, but it was covered in writing. He turned the page again, and then again, but there were no pictures. He felt a thrill of panic. He had the wrong book! He wouldn't be able to do what the teacher asked: he didn't have the book with the pictures in it.

Dexter was looking at him with annoyed disbelief on his face. "It's upside-down, dummy," he said, taking the tome from Roy's hands and turning it around. He grabbed a fistful of pages, and turned to the beginning of the book.

Roy almost cried with relief: there were pictures in this part of it. He quickly flipped through until he found the page with the turtle on it. "Thank you," he whispered.

From the front of the room, Miss Strueby cleared her throat. "Roy, you can get to know your fellow pupils at recess," she said reproachfully. "We don't talk during lessons."

A hot flush visited Roy's cheeks, and he bowed his head over the book. He studied the turtle with care. It was sitting on the rock, stretching its neck towards a little bug that was flying in loops through the air. There was a pond lapping against the stone, and a small fish was swimming under the water. It was a nice picture, and Roy decided that he had to remember to show it to Riza when he got back to the house.

There were words on the page, but the black glyphs were meaningless to Roy, so he looked at the other page instead. It, too, had words, and they were surrounded by a drawing of wildflowers with long, skinny stalks. A butterfly was perched on one of the flowers.

Time passed. At the front of the room, the big girls were taking it in turns to recite long passages about Fuhrers and battles and other things that Roy didn't really understand. Presently they finished, and moved on to what Miss Strueby called "spelling". This meant that she would say a very long, hard word that Roy had never heard before, and then the girls would take turns saying things like "ay-en-ay-see-aech-are-oh-en-eye-ess-tee-eye-see". Then the big girls sat down, and the teacher called up the littlest pupils, who showed her their slates and told her their t-t-t-'T' words ('tall', 'trunk', 'two', 'tie', 'turtle', 'tap', 'troll', 'turnip' and 'top').

The teacher then explained about the letter "U", and how little "u" and big "U" looked the same, except that little "u" was shorter. She made the "uh-uh-uh" sound, like "under" and "umbrella", and the "yoo-yoo-yoo" sound like "unicorn". After that, she sat beside each of the youngest pupils in turn, helping them draw the letter "U" on their slates.

Curious, Roy balanced the reader against his chest, and picked up the skinny white slate pencil. He didn't know how to hold it, so he closed his fist around it. The sharpened tip made a wobbly white line on the slate. He frowned. That was no good: he had no control at all. He closed the book, and drew the slate closer. Using his left hand, he adjusted the slate pencil so that his right index finger was crooked around it the way Riza had taught him to hold a spoon. That was better. He tried again. This time, the line he drew was almost straight.

He studied the prototype on the blackboard. Two straight lines, up and down next to each other, and a curvy piece joining them on the bottom. He scrutinized his work. It was very lopsided, and it bore no more than a passing resemblance to the letter the teacher had written. He tried again, this time using a single line that dipped down, curved across, and then ascended. It was better, but still not very good. A third attempt produced more acceptable results. The fourth was almost perfect.

"If you're bored, Roy, I can always hear the class's lesson now," said Miss Strueby. Roy looked up to see her standing over him, frowning down at his slate. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. The teacher returned to the front of the classroom. "First Reader, first class," she said.

The other children in the second row groaned, and Dexter dug his elbow into Roy's side. "Thanks a lot, dummy," he growled under his breath.

There were seven pupils, Roy included, who moved to the front of the room. Miss Strueby sat down and regarded them with raised eyebrows. "Now, Roy, since you were so tired of studying the lesson, perhaps you would like to go first."

"G-go where?" Roy stammered. The other children laughed.

"Order, please," said the teacher. "Recite the lesson, please, Roy," she clarified. "'_There was a little turtle..._' Go on."

"T-there was a little turtle?" Roy repeated. There was a cavernous silence.

"By?" prompted Miss Strueby.

Roy shook his head. He didn't know what she meant at all!

"Don't be shy," she said, almost kindly. "Try again, from the beginning."

"'_There was a little turtle.'" _It was hardly more than a whisper now. Roy knew that the teacher wanted him to say something else, but he had no idea where to begin.

The teacher waited expectantly. Someone tittered. Finally, Miss Strueby sighed. "You didn't learn the lesson, did you, Roy?" she asked.

He shook his head helplessly. He didn't even know what the lesson was supposed to be.

"I'm sorry to do this on your first day," said the teacher; "but I have no choice but to punish you. Go and stand in the corner."

She pointed to the corner opposite the wood stove. Roy obeyed her meekly.

"Turn against the wall," the teacher instructed. "Now, Elsa, please recite the lesson."

"'_There was a little turtle,'" _said one of the girls. "By Vachel Lindsay. '_There was a little turtle. He lived in a box. He swam in a puddle. He climbed on the rocks. He snapped at a moekisto, he snapped at a flea, he snapped—'"_

"Just a moment, Elsa," said the teacher. Roy heard her rise and move to the blackboard. The chalk squeaked against it. "What is this word?"

"Moekisto?" the girl tried.

"No, don't guess," Miss Strueby said. "Can anybody tell me what this word is?" No one answered. "Well, let's sound it out together."

"Mmm," said the First Reader class. "MMosss..."

"Remember, 'Q-U' makes a sound like a 'K'," said Miss Strueby.

"Mosssskeet-t-t-toe!" the children said.

"Mosquito, that's right," said the teacher. "Em-oh-ess-cue-yoo-eye-tee-oh spells 'mosquito'. Elsa?"

"Mosquito," the girl repeated. "Em-oh-ess-cue-yoo-eye-tee-oh."

"Very good. Now, again from the first '_he snapped_'."

As the girl went on, Roy realized what she was saying. It was a rhyme, like the ones that Riza liked to make. He was confused. The lesson was a rhyme? Had the teacher wanted them to make up a little song about the picture of the turtle?

But no, the next girl recited the same rhyme, and this time the teacher did not interrupt. The next pupil was a boy, and he skipped the part about living in a box. He had to repeat the whole thing over from the beginning. Then came Dexter, who trailed off halfway through and had to be prompted. The next girl started giggling in the middle of _"but he didn't catch me!_" The last one to recite, also a girl, did so perfectly. Then the teacher sent them back to their seats.

Roy remained in the corner, looking at the grain of the wall and fighting tears of frustration. He knew the rhyme _now, _having heard it six times. He just didn't understand how the other children had learned it while sitting so quietly. It had something to do with the writing on the page, he was sure. People read the writing, and it told them words to say, like when Riza's grandfather read stories. He wasn't sure, though, exactly what "reading" meant, or how he could do it.

His legs were very tired, and he was starting to feel a little ill when at last Miss Strueby told the students that they were dismissed for something called recess. He could hear the others rising from their seats and migrating towards the exit, and he turned around, wondering if that meant that the day was over and he could go back to the Hawkeye house.

"Roy, come here, please," the teacher said soberly. Roy approached her desk. "I understand it isn't always easy to focus and work hard," she told him; "but you must pay attention and study your lessons. Do you understand?"

"No," Roy confessed. He didn't understand at all. If "lessons" meant "reading", then he couldn't do it. It was a magical thing that adults seemed to do as easily as speaking or eating, but he had no idea where to begin. Even Riza, he thought defensively, couldn't read.

The teacher frowned. "Very well," she said. "Then you can go back to the corner and stand there until you're ready to focus on your work instead of doodling on your slate."

Roy wanted to protest, but he did not dare. He moved back into the corner, and turned his face into it. He leaned one shoulder against the wall, trying to make it easier to stay on his feet.

The big girls gathered around the teacher's desk, and he could hear them talking about an Examination, and about something called algebra. There was a lot of giggling, too, and even Miss Strueby laughed. Roy wondered how the big girls knew how to make the teacher happy. He wanted to, but he couldn't.

Presently, the teacher went outside to ring the bell, and the students came back in. The recitations resumed, and then the teacher gave more assignments and started to write out things that she called "arithmetic problems" on the blackboard for the Second Reader class. Roy grew progressively more weary, and his head began to feel lighter and lighter. He was feeling quite ill when the teacher finally announced that it was time for dinner. The students again got up, and this time there was the clattering of dinner pails as they gathered their meals on their way out the door. Roy didn't move. He didn't want the teacher to call him to her desk and ask him more impossible questions.

"Roy, you may sit at your desk and eat your dinner," Miss Strueby said. "I trust that you will be more attentive this afternoon."

Roy gratefully stepped away from the wall and made his way shakily to the back shelf, where Mrs. Hawkeye's tin pail was the only one still waiting to be claimed. He carried it carefully with both hands, and sat down on the hard wooden seat with a tiny sigh of relief. He was very dizzy, had been so afraid that he would fall over.

There was a piece of bread and a hunk of cheese to eat, a little jar of milk to drink, and a lime cut into slices and wrapped in waxed paper. Roy took the lime first. He had to eat one every day, because Doctor Bella had said so. Out of curiosity, Riza had one day taken a bite, spitting it out almost at once and complaining that it was too sour, but Roy didn't care about that. He liked the limes, and even woke up sometimes, craving them in the middle of the night. He took one of the segments and sucked on it, swallowing all of the tart juice before he started nibbling at the pulp.

"Hey, look!" one of the big girls said, pointing at him. Roy froze, wondering if he was doing something wrong.

"_Lucky_," said another. She turned back to her friends. "They're really expensive, you know. You have to get them all the way from South City: they don't even grow in Central!"

"Awfully spoiled for a runaway, isn't he?" whispered the third. "I heard he killed his parents."

"Oh, Mandy, what an awful thing to say!" the second girl squealed.

"I heard they _had_ to get another kid," the first one murmured. "'Cause Mrs. Hawkeye's going crazy. After their boy died, she just went right out of her mind! So Hawkeye-sensei bought a boy from an eastern trader."

"Why'd they get such a skinny one?" asked Mandy. "Wouldn't they want another fat boy?"

"That's not nice to say, either," the second girl reproached. "You know he was sick."

"Right, so sick that he was fat like a mother bear. No wonder he fell: I'll be the branches couldn't hold his weight," Mandy snickered.

Roy wasn't sure who they were talking about, but he knew it wasn't him. He wasn't healthy, but he definitely wasn't fat like a bear. He was a skinny, scrawny runt: Mrs. Hawkeye often said so.

The food made him feel better, and when the teacher rang the bell to call the pupils back inside, he was able to return his dinner pail to the shelf without any fear of stumbling. Again, the students were given lessons to work on, but the teacher didn't give one to the class that Roy was in. Instead, they worked on "arithmetic", doing things called "plus" and "minus". "Plus" meant that two numbers made a bigger number, and "minus" meant that one number made the other one smaller. This was not so hard, because Roy knew the words for the numbers, and he could count seven and seven in his mind and know that it was fourteen.

After a while, though, the teacher told them to study page 26 in the reader. Then Roy was left to stare helplessly at the picture of the little boy with his fishing pole and his dog, and wonder what words the mysterious black shapes signified. He was terrified that the teacher would call on him again, and find that he did not know the lesson, and make him stand in the corner once more, but she did not. At last, she rose and told the class that they were dismissed for the day. Roy waited, lest he should receive some different instruction, and then gathered up Davell's slate and the book and the slate pencil. He picked up the tin dinner pail, and went outside.

The other students were already scattering, racing home to houses or farms. The big girls walked sedately together, watching the little ones with an air that clearly communicated that such behaviour was beneath them. Everyone was happy to be free, excited at the prospect of an evening of play. Roy was anything but. He had misbehaved in school: the teacher had had to punish him for his inattentiveness. Now, Mrs. Hawkeye would be angry, and she would punish him. She had promised to wear him out with a wooden spoon if he didn't behave.

His homeward steps were made heavy not only by the constrictive shoes, but by a gnawing dread. He wanted to cry, but he didn't. It wouldn't help. Today had been a terrible day, and school was a terrible place, and tears couldn't change that.

_NOTE:_ _Many thanks to Vachel Lindsay, the turn-of-the-century poet whose work is cited above. --Stoplight Delight_


	12. Bitter Truths

**Chapter 11: Bitter Truths**

Mordred sighed and sat back to knead his eyes with the back of his thumb. This was much more difficult than it had always sounded. Encoding a lifetime of research into a secure and compact form was challenging—and, he was beginning to think, next to impossible. He had tried using a book of coats-of-arms to disguise his notes, and then a collection of watercolour paintings, and most recently a series of line drawings of his daughter at play. None of those mediums offered the intricacy and subtlety that he needed to communicate his life's work.

In any case, paper was perishable, and subject to the ravages of the environment. How many old texts had he sifted through, trying to piece together pages reduced to dust by the slow encroachment of time, dampness and book lice? And that was nothing to the damage that his own tool of choice could do. He had destroyed his early drafts just this morning, placing them into the fireplace and then sending them into oblivion with a snap of his flint.

The door to his study creaked as it was pushed open. Even before she peered around the heavy slab of wood, Mordred knew that Riza was responsible for the intrusion. He imagined she was bored, her favourite new playmate having been sent off to school for the first time today. Still, the way the day was going, he was not certain that he minded the interruption.

"What is it, _chibi-chan_?" he asked, almost smiling as Riza entered the room. Her happy grin was always good for his soul.

Only she wasn't smiling.

"Papa? Are you busy?" she asked softly.

"A little," he said. "What can I do for you?"

Riza rocked a little from heel to toe. "I'm hungry," she said.

"Already?" Mordred asked, looking at his clock, which proclaimed it to be almost half past two. "It's not snack time yet."

"I don't want a snack," Riza said. "I want dinner."

It took a moment for this to sink in. "You didn't have dinner?" Mordred asked. "Where's your mother?"

"She's prayin'," Riza told him. "She was mad, and now she's prayin'."

Mordred sighed. "How long has she been praying?"

Riza shrugged. "Long time," she said. "Can I please have my dinner?"

"Yes, go to the kitchen," Mordred said, a little more brusquely than he meant to. "As soon as I check on your mother, I'll come and make you some dinner."

"Okay," Riza said, toddling off down the corridor. Mordred capped his inkwell, crumpled his latest attempt at a cipher, and left the study, closing the door firmly behind him and locking it with the array carved into the lintel.

He could hear the frenetic murmuring even before he turned towards the parlour. Lian was on her knees before the low table, her head bowed over clasped hands. She was speaking very quickly, drawing small, panicked breaths, and there were tears running over her fingers.

"Ishbala be merciful, Ishbala be kind," she was gasping. "Spare my child, my son, my only son. Spare him, save him, bring him home to me. I beg You, take me instead. Spare my child. Bring my son home."

"Lian?" Mordred said softly. The frantic supplications continued: she had not heard him, or she chose to ignore him. She had been like this for hours, working herself up into a reverie. There was only one way to bring her out of it.

The oil of valerian was in the study: it only took a moment to unlock the door, and another moment to retrieve the vial. He hurried into the kitchen, where Riza perked up as he entered. Ignoring her and her eager question about what he was going to give her for dinner, he took a mug and quickly diluted a dram of the drug with water. Two spoonfuls from the sugar bowl would take the edge off of the bitter concoction. His extemporaneous compound completed, Mordred hastened back to his wife.

She struggled as he pulled her back into his arms. "Hush," he said, lifting the cup to her lips with more expertise than he wanted to have. "Drink this. It will make you feel better."

Lian murmured one more frenetic entreaty, but Mordred stroked her throat, just to the left of her voice box, and her lips parted to receive the fluid. "My son, my only son," she whispered, her eyes focusing on Davell's picture.

"Yes, I know," Mordred said wearily. He hated these times. He felt so helpless. "Let's get you to bed."

"No, no," Lian sobbed, fighting against him again. "I want my baby. I need my son."

She hadn't been this bad in weeks. Mordred held her to his chest, stroking her long, handsome hair and rocking a little. Lian's limbs fell still, and she curled in towards him gradually, as the sedative began to work its way through her system. It took the better part of fifteen minutes for her to settle to the point where Mordred felt her pliable enough to be moved. He helped her to her feet, and led her to the stairs.

Once in the bedroom, it was simple enough to undress her and settle her into bed. By that time, she was almost asleep, and did not protest as he tucked the blankets around her. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped the tear-tracks from her face. His poor, beloved wife. Her grief and the strange madness lurked just beneath the surface on good days, and welled up in a bitter torrent on days like this. It was slowly destroying her, but as Mordred stood over her, he realized that it was destroying _him_, too. He couldn't bear to watch her suffer like this. There had to be something that he could do to help her.

He couldn't give the problem any further thought, because it suddenly occurred to him that there was a child downstairs, waiting to be fed. He bent swiftly and brushed his lips against Lian's forehead. She did not stir even a little in response.

"I thought you forgot me," Riza admonished as he entered the kitchen. "I'm hungry."

"I told you I had to check on your mother first," Mordred told her, a little impatiently. He went to the bread box and tore a hunk from the loaf. "Do you want bread and milk?" he asked.

"I want soup," Riza said. "With carrots 'n potatoes."

"Well, there isn't any soup," Mordred said. "You can have bread and milk, or you can just have plain bread. I'll cut an apple if you want, but we don't have any soup."

"Momma makes soup," Riza said disconsolately.

"Not today. Momma is sick. She's sleeping." Mordred took a bowl from the cupboard. "So what do you want?"

Riza's lower lip quivered a little. "Are you mad, Papa?" she asked.

Mordred closed his eyes and composed his features with a considerable effort. "No," he said. "No, _chibi-chan_, I'm not mad. I'm only tired."

"Oh," Riza said, putting one plump finger into her mouth and regarding him thoughtfully. "I got a question."

That was a new one, Mordred thought, and in spite of himself he smiled a little. Usually, Riza just burst out with a whole litany of questions, like some kind of hyperactive interrogator. "All right, what's your question?"

"Would Momma be sick if we had a baby?"

Mordred set the bread in front of her, and took up an apple and the paring knife. "Why do you ask?" he said.

"Babies are nice," Riza said. "An' they don't go to school. Babies make the ladies happy. They're nice to play with."

"Yes, that's true, _chibi-chan_, but babies don't fall from the sky," Mordred said, sitting down across from her and starting to peel the piece of fruit.

"I hope not!" Riza cried, genuinely distressed. "They'd get hurt!"

Mordred flinched. He needed to think twice before he said things like that. If Lian had been here to overhear such a thoughtless comment... "I mean, babies don't just come because you wish they would," he said.

"So how do they come?" Riza asked.

"Well..." Mordred rubbed his brow with the back of his hand. How did he get into these conversations with a three-year-old? At nine, Davell hadn't been half this critical or astute. Then again, he had always been a slow child, and Riza was anything but. "Babies come when a mother and a father are both healthy, and Momma is sick, so a baby can't come to our house," he said.

"I know a way a baby could come," Riza said, taking an enormous bite of the bread.

Now she was going to suggest something fanciful and absurd, like buying a magic flower from a wise old woman, or travelling into the faerie country to rescue a changeling. Mordred cut the apple into wedges and waited for his daughter to stop chewing before he asked; "And how is that?"

"You can take my doll," Riza said. "It's a boy doll now, 'cause Momma made pants for it. It looks just like a real baby, and you can use your alchemy and turn it into a boy baby!"

Mordred dropped the paring knife, staring at her in shock. It was definitely not the answer he had been expecting. "It—it doesn't work like that, _chibi-chan_," he said. "I can't make a live thing out of something that isn't."

"But you fix broken things," Riza reasoned.

"Yes, but..." Mordred stopped. How could he explain the law of equivalent exchange to a child? In a three-year-old's mind, a broken thing _wasn't_ worth the same as a whole thing, and the difference between damaged and mended was no less to Riza than the difference between living and nonliving.

"Please, Papa? Can you try it?" Riza asked.

"No," Mordred said firmly. "It wouldn't work. I'm sorry, _chibi-chan_, but you can't have a real baby. You'll just have to be happy with your doll."

"And my boy," Riza said. She took a noisy bite of the apple.

"And your boy," Mordred said, dimly aware that he was with those three words undertaking an obligation he had been sidestepping for weeks.

Speak of the devil, he thought as the back door opened and Roy Mustang came in. He was dragging his feet, and he looked skinnier than ever with Davell's old clothes billowing around him.

"My boy!" Riza cried in delight, forgetting all about her belated dinner as she jumped off the chair and ran to hug him. The boy yelped a little, trying to keep his balance without dropping any of his assorted burdens. "You came back from school! I missed you."

Mordred got up to take the dinner pail before the boy could drop it. "Mind you don't break that slate," he said.

The boy wriggled free of Riza to set down the remainder of his sundries on the table. Then he let her throw her arms around him again. Mordred felt a small twinge of jealously. She hadn't felt able to hug _him_ this afternoon, and yet she was lavishing affection on this feral little stranger.

"Go and take off your school clothes," he told the boy. "Riza, finish your apple."

"Then we can play," Riza promised Roy in an almost conspiratorial way. He nodded and left the room, and Mordred scooped up the apple peelings and put them into the waste bucket in the lean-to. If only the other messes in the house were as easy to clean up as this one...

_discidium_

Roy moaned in relief as he finally managed to wrench the shoe off of his foot. The thick leather garments had been troubling him all day, with their weight and their heat and the pressure that they placed on a part of his body that had not been thus covered in years. The sock was quick to follow, and he stretched out his toes gratefully. He struggled with the other shoe, but at last he was free of that as well. With care, he removed Davell's shirt and Davell's pants, and put on one of the long shirts that had belonged to Hawkeye-sensei.

"Are you ready?" Riza asked, coming around the corner. "I want to play soldiers."

Roy nodded. "Okay," he said. Riza grabbed his hand and led him off towards the stairs. He hobbled after her, impeded by the fresh blisters on his heels.

They played quietly with Riza's tin soldiers until Hawkeye-sensei called them for supper. Then Roy was left alone in the kitchen while the alchemist took his daughter to bed. He sat for a little while, then went upstairs to use the bathroom. It was another luxury that he had been slow to grow accustomed to, and it was still a little strange.

He was just about to go back to the kitchen when he heard Riza speak. "Papa, what about a story?"

"Not tonight," Hawkeye-sensei replied. "Go to sleep."

"But Papa..."

"Not tonight." The man came out of Riza's room, and frowned at Roy. "You, too. Bed," he said. Then he vanished into the master bedroom.

Roy hesitated for a moment, and then he had an idea. He went downstairs, jumping a little when the trick step let out a crack like a shotgun. Instead of heading to the parlour as the adult had told him, he returned to the kitchen. The reader was still on the table, and he carried it up the stairs, this time counting the steps. When he reached the bad one, he clung to the banister with his free hand and stepped over it. It took a lot of effort for his small legs to span the gap, but he managed it, and moved quietly into the upstairs hallway. He opened the door to Riza's room, and slipped inside.

"Roy!" Riza said happily, sitting up in her bed.

"Ssh," he said, looking around by the dim light of the turned-down wick smouldering in the gas lamp. He couldn't reach the light to turn it up, but the moon was shining outside. He crossed the room, stubbing his toe on Riza's toybox, and pulled the curtains open.

Riza giggled. "What are you doing?"

Roy climbed onto the bed and sat down next to her. He hauled the heavy book onto his lap. "Do you want a bedtime story?" he asked.

Riza sighed. "Papa said no," she mourned.

Roy opened the reader. "I'll tell you a story," he offered.

Riza looked at him, a curious new respect in her carmine eyes. "You _will_?" she asked.

He nodded, turning the pages to find the one that the class had been set to study that morning.

"'_The Little Turtle_'," he said, closing his eyes and focusing on the words that he had heard over and over again at school. "'_There was a little turtle. He lived in a box. He swam in a puddle. He climbed on the rocks._'"

Riza laughed softly and snuggled back against the pillows, leaning her head towards Roy's arm.

Roy went on, slowly and carefully. "'_He snapped at a mosquito. He snapped at a flea. He snapped at a minnow, and he snapped at me.'"_

"Snapped at me," Riza echoed, smacking her lips together in an approximation of a turtle.

"'_He caught the mosquito,'" _Roy recited. "'_He caught the flea. He caught the minnow... but he didn't catch me!'"_

Riza giggled. "That's a nice story," she said. "Another one?"

Roy shook his head slowly. He wished that he could, but it was the only rhyme he knew, and he couldn't read, so he couldn't oblige her. "It's time to sleep," he said.

Riza nodded, yawning enormously. "Are you going to stay here?" she asked.

"No," Roy said softly. He knew he wasn't allowed to sleep upstairs, and he had no interest in running afoul of Mrs. Hawkeye, who had been mercifully absent today.

"Okay," Riza said happily, flopping onto her side and snuggling her face against her pillow. She seemed quite content with the arrangement, so Roy got up, closed the curtains, and crept from the room.

He moved down the hall, his bare feet padding quietly against the long, thin rug. He held the rail for balance as he moved down the stairs, but this time he forgot about the trick step. It went off like a shot, and he slipped, startled. The primer fell from his hands and tumbled to the bottom of the stairs. Roy himself landed hard on his tailbone, and slid down three steps before he managed to catch himself. He sat there for a minute, stunned and afraid that someone upstairs had heard him, then struggled to his feet and managed to get to the bottom of the stairs.

He picked up the book, smoothing the bent pages as best he could. He looked over his shoulder once more, afraid that he would see one of the adults come to investigate the noise. No one was there. Relieved but bruised, Roy limped into the parlour and began to settle down for the night.

_discidium_

Mordred heard someone trod on the bad step, which protested like a revolver, and he heard the crash. He was halfway to the bedroom door to see who had fallen, when Lian stirred.

Usually, the valerian was sufficient to keep her under until morning. Such was apparently not the case tonight. She moaned softly, and he hurried back to her side, groping for her hand in the semidarkness.

"Mordred?" she whispered drowsily.

"I'm here, love," he pledged. "How are you?"

"Is he home from school?" she asked.

"Yes, he's home," said the alchemist, wondering why the scrawny foundling should be foremost on her mind.

"Is he all right?" Lian queried, her voice cracking a little with what seemed to be genuine concern. "Did they tease him?"

"I don't know," Mordred said, caught off guard. "Why would they tease him?"

"Children... they're so cruel," Lian said. "He's such a sweet boy. We mustn't let them tease him anymore. You must speak to the teacher."

It seemed as if the bottom fell out of Mordred's stomach. She wasn't talking about Roy. She was talking about Davell. "Yes, I—I'll speak to her," he said.

Lian nodded docilely, reaching up to caress his cheek. "You're a good father, Mordred," she said. "I love you."

"I love you, too," he tried to say, but the words caught in his throat. He raised a hand to wipe away the tear that escaped the corner of his eye. Lian had not said that to him in a long, long time—not since before Davell's death. She was only saying it now, he knew, because in her drugged and dopey state, she believed he was still alive and that he, and not the beggar's brat, had been to school today.

"Lian," he began, but she was lying limply against his arm, fast asleep. He got to his feet and stumbled to the door.

A taste of normalcy, that's what it was. A momentary glimpse at the way things had been between them when Davell was still alive. He knew it was foolish, and illogical, and in all other ways unscientific, but he loved her. He had loved her from the moment he first laid eyes upon lissom young Lian Grumman at a fair in Central City, and he loved her still. More than anything, he wanted to have her heart again.

But he couldn't. They had buried her heart ten months ago, in the graveyard on the hill, when the broad, squat little coffin had been lowered into the earth with Davell's body inside. He couldn't have his wife back any more than he could reclaim his son, for he would never have the former without the latter.

He moved into his study and pulled the flint out of his pocket. A ribbon of sparks arced through the air, hopping from candle to candle until the room was flooded with dancing light. Mordred moved to the desk, where his black notebooks were laid out, surrounded by the detritus of his attempts to properly preserve their contents. He slammed his palms down on the desk in a gesture of impotent frustration. It was his life's work, and it was all but complete. He had accomplished at last what he had dreamed of as a wet-nosed apprentice. He had achieved control over the most fearsome of the four elements. He was the lord of fire, with skill to give life and warmth, and power so great that the Fuhrer himself wanted to exploit it.

He was useless. All this work, all this effort—now only awaiting immortalization—was meaningless. There was nothing in the science of alchemy, to which he had devoted his life from the age of fifteen, that could help him now. As he had told Riza that afternoon, he could not make life from the nonliving. He could not breathe the soul back into Lian, any more than he could bring his son back from the dead.

With a sob of despair, he sank into his chair. He had never felt so helpless. There was nothing he could do to help her. Nothing at all.


	13. The Dumb Boy

**Chapter 12: The Dumb Boy**

Roy stole a surreptitious look at the classroom window. The sun was shining brightly outside, and he thought wistfully of Riza, who was probably playing in her yard right now. He wished he was there with her, listening to her happy chatter and responding when she expected him to. He wished he was anywhere but here. His back was sore from bending over the reader, and his feet ached from dangling so long. He wanted to take Davell's shoes off, and he wanted to lie down in the grass, and he wanted to do just about anything but sit here, staring at a page of meaningless letters and pretending to learn a lesson that he could not understand, all the while feeling a growing knot of anxiety under his ribs as the time for the class to be heard by Miss Strueby drew nearer.

It had taken him a few days, but he was beginning to adapt to the small, complex world of Hamner School. The trick, he had learned, was to escape the teacher's notice. If he could manage to be the third or fourth pupil to deliver any given lesson, then he had a chance to learn it by listening to the others' recitation. It wasn't a perfect system, for the others didn't always get through the passages verbatim, but it did seem to mitigate the punishment for failure to perform. Occasionally, the teacher _would_ call on him first, of course, and then he would be scolded for his laziness and sent to stand in the corner. Because he wasn't strong, this was a difficult castigation to bear, and every day he dreaded the chance that he would be thus singled out.

He had learned very quickly that he had to blend in. He had to pretend that he understood, even if he didn't. He didn't ask questions, and he was getting very good at knowing when to say "Yes, Miss", and when "No, Miss". He hated every dreary minute, and the only thing that kept him going through the long, difficult days was the knowledge that when it was over he could go back to the Hawkeye house. There, no one cared that he didn't understand his lessons. Riza was just as pleased with his rote recitations as she would have been had he read them. Hawkeye-sensei seldom bothered even to look at him. And Mrs. Hawkeye didn't seem to care anymore, one way or another.

As far as Roy was concerned, this was an improvement. Every morning she would wake him with one brusque; "You, boy, get up and eat your breakfast!" When he was done eating, she would force the horrid shoes onto his feet, shove Davell's dinner pail into his arms, and herd him out the door. After school, she never even seemed to notice he was there, and she _never_ asked whether he was behaving himself. Roy was glad. He harboured a secret fear that if she found out about the times he spent standing in the corner, she would make good her threat to beat him.

The teacher cleared her throat, looking up from her table. "Roy Mustang, eyes on your work, please," she said, a clear warning in her voice.

Roy turned back to look at the page. There was a lot of writing on this one, in six skinny columns, and the picture was very boring: three bells on a ribbon that wound around the edge of the paper. The image on the opposite plate was more interesting: a handsome looking soldier was mounted on a rearing horse, the tails of his military coat rippling in the wind. He had a sabre at his side and a long pistol in his hand. He looked like what Riza called a Special Soldier, but even this picture was waxing banal. He had had nothing to do for the last ninety minutes but look at it and listen to the whisper of the big girls' pens as they worked on compositions.

Dexter snickered a little, and swung one leg so that the sole of his shoe scuffed against the floor. "Eyes on your work, please!" he hissed in a nasal whisper. Roy sighed. He didn't like Dexter. He was six years old and a bully. He picked on the girls, he picked on the littlest pupils, and he picked on his seatmate. Roy had bruises up and down his right side where the other boy had jabbed him with his elbow when Miss Strueby wasn't looking.

"Since the class has obviously tired of studying," the teacher said, frowning at Roy and his seatmate; "please come up to the front and form an orderly line."

Roy was startled by these instructions: ordinarily, they just clustered around the desk and stepped forward as needed. The other children didn't seem surprised, however, and he followed them as they made a queue parallel to the blackboard.

"I expect each of you to spell at least five words correctly," Miss Strueby said. "We will keep going until each of you have done that. Elsa, please spell 'fish'."

"Fish," said the blonde child. "Eff-aye-ess-aych. Fish."

_Eff-aye-ess-aych, fish_, Roy thought frantically, trying to commit the sounds to memory. _Eff-aye-ess-aych, fish_.

"Good." Elsa smiled happily, and moved to the back of the line. Everyone shuffled forward a little. "Leona, your word is 'boat'."

Roy's pulse quickened. The teacher had set a different lesson for Leona than she had for Elsa! How would he know which one _he_ was supposed to recite?

"Boat. Bee-oh-ay-tee. Boat." Leona, too, moved to the rear of the line. Roy swallowed hard, realizing with mounting horror that he was not going to be able to do this. It sounded like another language entirely

"Norman, your word is a hard one. Please spell 'mouse'."

The boy grimaced a little. "Em," he said. "Em-oh..."

There was a long pause. Miss Strueby watched the boy expectantly.

"Em-oh..." Norman repeated, then said, very quickly; "Em-oh-ess-ee."

"I'm sorry Norman, no," Miss Strueby said. "Please go to the back of the line. Sally, can you spell 'mouse'?"

"Em-oh-_you_-ess-ee," the clever girl said, without hesitation. She was without a doubt the smartest in the class, and always knew the answer.

The next word was "ball", and the one after that was "today". Then it was Roy's turn. He steeled himself, not knowing what he would do. He didn't understand the gibberish sounds that the others used so easily.

"Roy, spell 'world'," Miss Strueby instructed.

"World," Roy said nervously, imitating the others. He paused. He didn't know what to say next. There had to be some kind of pattern to the way the sounds were used, but he couldn't decipher it. "W-world," he repeated, then closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and guessed. "Tee-you-bee-gee-ess-vee."

One of the older girls giggled. Miss Strueby blinked, a little perplexed. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

Roy couldn't. He said instead, "Dee-aych-aych-see."

This time, almost everyone laughed. Roy looked about helplessly, ashamed of his own stupidity. Miss Strueby's pretty face furrowed into a deep frown of disapproval.

"That's quite enough!" she said sharply, and the room fell silent. The teacher stood up. "Roy, if you do not wish to pay attention to your lessons, that is your concern," she told him. "If you wish to grow up stupid and ignorant and lazy, I cannot stop you, though it is my duty to try. But I will _not_ tolerate disruptions of this kind in my school. You must learn that this is not the time or the place to be impudent."

Roy nodded anxiously. He had not meant to be impudent, he had only been trying to do what the other children were, but without any understanding of the concept behind "spelling". It was useless to protest.

The teacher picked up the long ruler that sat on the ledge of the blackboard. "Put out your hands and turn your palms up," she said.

Little Mary gasped from her place in the front row. From the corner of his eye, Roy could see strange, carnivorous grins on the faces of the older boys. Unsure what was about to happen, he obeyed.

The supple tool whistled through the air, and Roy cried out in pain. He leapt back, away from his attacker, and tried to run. Miss Strueby was too quick for him. She caught his shoulder and turned him around. "Be still," she said. "You wanted to misbehave, and now you have to take the consequences."

She held his hands in place with one of her own, and with the other, dealt him nine more sharp, stinging blows: a total of five to each palm. Roy tried not to pull away again, but he could not stifle a whimper of pain as the last smack struck home.

"Go and sit down," the teacher said sternly. "I will not have you disrupting the lesson again!"

Cheeks burning with shame and hands with pain, Roy shuffled hurriedly back to his desk. He slid up onto the hard seat, and hung his head, gnawing his lip and trying to control himself. He couldn't let the others see what he was feeling. He couldn't let them know that he was hurting. He had to look strong, even though he was hurt and frightened and so bewildered.

The spelling went on, and when at last it was over, the teacher dismissed the class for dinner. Roy did not move, certain that he was still being punished, until Miss Strueby expressly told him to go outside and eat.

He collected his dinner pail, hesitating for a moment before he dared to venture through the door into the purgatory beyond.

A strong hand grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back, while the assailant's accomplice wrenched the dinner pail from his hand. Roy didn't need to look to know who had been lying in wait for him: it was Dexter's older brother Karl, and his friend Wesley. They were a pair of towheaded thugs, the undisputed overlords of the schoolyard. Like Dexter, they preyed on the weaker members of the species, and of all their targets, Roy was a favourite.

"Hey, slope-eyes," Karl growled. "Anything good today?"

Roy didn't answer. Two months ago, he would have fought back, tooth and nail, until they let him go or beat him into a stupor, and then moved on to another village as soon as he could walk again. The nine weeks in the Hawkeye household, however, had robbed him of that option. He could not bear the thought of running away from Riza, and the warm blanket on the parlour sofa, and three proper meals every day. So he was trapped enduring whatever torment these bullies chose to mete out.

Wesley pried the lid off of Davell's dinner pail, and tossed it to the ground. He laughed. "Milk again! Baby needs his milk!"

Roy watched helplessly as the big boy opened the jar and poured out its contents. In less than half a minute, the nourishing liquid was nothing but a muddy mess amid the stems of wild grass. The bigger boy took out the piece of good brown bread that was the staple of Roy's meal, dropped it, and used the heel of his shoe to grind it into the dirt. Then he pulled out the lime—the prize around which this daily ritual was built--and dropped the dinner pail.

Dexter came sauntering up, sneering meanly. "Enjoy your dinner, dummy," he snickered, holding out his hand for his share of the bounty.

"Dummy," echoed Karl. "Old lady Strueby thought you were being funny, slope-eyes, but you know what I think? I think you don't know how to spell! You're nothing but a stupid gutter brat. You oughta go back to East City where you belong!"

Roy didn't speak. If he said nothing, they would tire of this and leave him be. Then he could pick up the shredded remains of the bread and at least eat _something_. He wasn't too proud to grub in the dust for his food, and after years of near-starvation he was hardly fastidious. He knew that it amused them to see him behaving thus, but his need to eat overrode his longing for dignity.

"Yeah, dummy," said Wesley, slurping loudly as he bit into another segment of the fragrant piece of fruit. How come they let trash like you into the school, anyway? Is it 'cause Crazy Hawkeye made them do it?"

"We're talking to you, dummy!" Karl said. He grabbed one of Roy's sore hands and dug his thumb deep into the bruised palm. Involuntary tears sprung to the child's eyes, and he tried to pull away.

"Hey, he's crying!" Dexter chortled. "Widdle baby Roy-Roy is cwying!"

"Roy-Roy the dumb boy's crying!" laughed Wesley.

Karl whooped in amusement. "Roy-Roy the dumb boy!" he chanted. "Roy-Roy the dumb boy."

A crowd of the others was gathering now, attracted to the scene like carrion-fowl to a slaughter.

"Roy-Roy the dumb boy!" little Tom from the primer class piped up. He was only five, and he was acting out of amusement rather than malice, but his exclamation opened a floodgate.

"Roy-Roy the dumb boy!" several others chanted, the cruel singsong gaining momentum. Roy stared down at Davell's shoes, trying not to care. It was no use. The cruel moniker cut into his lonely heart, leaving him miserable and still more isolated from his peers.

_discidium_

When the students were dismissed for the afternoon, Roy hurried from the schoolhouse as quickly as he could. It was no use. The taunts and the ugly, rhyming insult followed him as he made his way back along his habitual route. As he reached the rows of houses, his pursuers fell away for fear of reprimands from the adults, but the hurt lingered.

He always followed this same path, down the lane past Doctor Bella's surgery, through the square, and past the long rows of pretty houses to the Hawkeye home on the far edge of town. It was a long walk, and in the afternoons a busy one. Roy felt uncomfortable in crowds. All of the people, brushing past him and moving around him, seemed like potential threats. He knew that on the outside he looked no different from any other boy, but on the inside he was still a frightened runaway. He didn't really belong here, and if they ever found out, they would be angry, and he would be in danger.

He stopped in front of Doctor Bella's, because it felt nice to know that he was nearby someone who did not care that he was different, even if she was inside with her patients and too busy to have time for him. He almost jumped out of his skin when the door opened, and the object of his thoughts smiled out at him.

"I was hoping I could catch you," she said. "Come inside. I want to weigh you."

Roy was too surprised to speak, but he stepped inside. The front room of the doctor's house was very pleasant-looking. There were chairs and a big sofa with overstuffed cushions that looked much more comfortable than the hard, slippery horsehair couch in Mrs. Hawkeye's parlour. They didn't linger there, however, for the physician led him through to an inner room, where there was a high counter with a mattress on it, and shelves of books and strange-looking instruments.

"Here, give me those," Doctor Bella said, taking Davell's book, slate and dinner pail and setting them on the counter. "Step up here."

Roy obeyed, standing on a black pad. A white metal bar rose from it, and there was a balance on top. The doctor slid a bar slowly up the balance until it wobbled to and fro, then nudged it with her finger and waited. The bar levelled itself.

"Hmm," the doctor said. "That's good. You're almost as heavy as Riza now. We need to get you growing, my boy."

"Yes, ma'am," Roy said softly, though he wasn't quite sure how she meant to do that.

The doctor picked him up under his arms and lifted him onto the cushioned counter. She picked up a funny-looking black hammer. "I'm going to tap your knee," she said. To Roy's surprise, when she did so, his foot kicked, even though he didn't want to. "How's school?"

Roy considered the question. He could pour out the truth, and tell her how he didn't understand his lessons, and how the writing in the reader made no sense to him; how the teacher made him stand in the corner because he was stupid and lazy, and how the children called him names and stole his limes, and how today his hands had been beaten because he didn't know how to spell; and how much he wished he could just stay at the house and play with Riza. He could say all that, but then the doctor might think that he was wicked, and lazy, and stupid and ungrateful.

"It's good," he said, and he forced a smile onto his face, tucking his sore hands into Davell's pockets.

The doctor seemed pleased. "I'm glad to hear it," she said. "I was worried, you know. It's a big change for you. Open up."

Roy obeyed, and held very still while she ran her finger along his gums, checking for sores. He gasped as she touched a tender spot.

"Hmm," the physician said, trying to wiggle his front tooth with the tip of her thumb. It moved a little, and Roy felt a thrill of fear. The last time it had moved like that, it had kept getting looser and looser until it had fallen out. That had been very frightening, and he had been so happy when a new tooth had grown in to replace the old one. "Haven't you been eating your limes?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Roy lied. He only had one on Saturday and one on Sunday now, for Karl and the others stole them during the week.

The doctor frowned, and he wondered if she had seen through the fib. But she only clicked her tongue thoughtfully against her teeth. "Well, maybe it's nothing," she said. "You'd better run along home: Mrs. Hawkeye will worry if you're late."

He didn't have a home, and Mrs. Hawkeye wouldn't worry if he was _dead_, but Roy didn't contradict the doctor. He let her lift him off of the counter, recovered Davell's things, and left the surgery to resume his miserable, solitary trek.


	14. Annual Strangers

**Chapter 13: Annual Strangers **

Momma was sleeping again.

Riza looked at her, curled up on the old blanket that she had brought into the yard to sit upon, and frowned. She had promised to be the Fuhrer today, but now, when Riza had only been travelling for ten minutes, she was already dozing in the sunshine. It was because of the medicine, which Papa was giving her every night and even sometimes in the daytime now. Riza knew she shouldn't mind it, because Momma was sick, and medicine helped people get better, but sometimes she couldn't help it. She was only three, after all, and she wished that she could have her real mother back.

Having a Fuhrer who was fast asleep took all the fun out of racing towards Central, so Riza put down Ruby and surveyed the yard in search of something else to do. She was tired of the sand pile, and she wasn't allowed to pull up the vegetables without someone to watch her, and she couldn't play with her red ball by herself, and there was nothing to do.

She walked around the house and climbed onto the low fence, tucking her arms over it for balance. Her bright carmine eyes scanned the open prairie to her left, and saw nothing of immediate interest, then turned towards town. There was the road that Roy would take when he came home from school. She couldn't wait. She didn't like the long days of playing alone, while Papa was buried in his study and Momma was cleaning the house or sleeping or staring at the wall. She was actually quite put out that her father had sent her playmate away, when he had only just started to learn how to participate in the games she devised.

A rattling of wheels turned her attention to the north again. In the distance, a large, cumbersome wagon was just cresting the rise leading to the village. Riza watched curiously as it drew nearer, and her interest mounted when she saw that it was followed by not one, but two other vehicles. The one in the lead was a domed caravan, with handsomely carved panels on the sides and tiny windows of coloured glass. Behind it moved a smaller, but similar vehicle. The third was a large open cart, its contents covered by a tarpaulin lashed to the sides. All three were pulled by enormous dray horses with thick, practical coats, well-combed manes, and woolly hooves.

Riza watched in amazement, never having seen such a thing before. There were two men on the seats of each vehicle. The first was driven by a young, sober-faced man wearing narrow glasses with oval-shaped lenses, and next to him sat a balding patriarch with a pleasant-looking face. He had a pipe between his teeth, and was whittling on a stick as he swayed easily with the rhythm of the horses. He, too, wore spectacles, and his were round with thick lenses.

The smaller caravan carried a grinning man dressed in bright hues of blue, and a very grim-faced gentleman some years older than him. The unsmiling passenger wore eyeglasses with rectangular lenses, and the merry-looking driver was the only one in the party who did not have any at all. The sturdy cart was driven by a cheerful looking man wearing heavy leather gloves on his hands, and half-moon spectacles on his nose. Next to him sat someone whom Riza realized was actually a boy, and not a man at all—though some years older than her boy. His glasses were round, like the old man's, but they were simply 'normous, and gave him the look of a grinning owl.

A seventh person was next to the cart, mounted on a glossy pony. He looked a great deal like the other men, and his lenses were shaped like wings: round near the nose, and scooping to a point on the outside. He had a playful grin on his face, and as the convoy neared the house, he spotted Riza.

"Hello, there, Miss!" he said, tipping his floppy felt hat. "How do you do?"

The man in blue laughed, looking over his shoulder at the lone rider. "Easy does it, Tiath! I know you're desperate, but that's no reason to start robbing cradles!"

"Look who's talking," said the horseman. To be heard over the rattle of wheels, he had to raise his voice, which made him sound even merrier. Riza loved the sound of happy adults, and since Grandfather had gone back to Central, she had had little exposure to it. She decided that she liked these men.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Nowhere at all, everywhere at once!" said Tiath. The man in blue, the bald man, and the boy all laughed.

The man driving the cart looked back over his shoulder. "We'll be here for a few weeks," he called out. "Tell your mother that the tinkers are in town!"

Before Riza could ask what a tinker was, the carts were rolling out of earshot. She watched them go, and just as they were vanishing around the bend into town, Tiath brought his pony back around. He waved at her, winked, and then took off at a trot. Riza smiled happily and leaned forward a little, reaching over the fence and trying to brush the tops of the prairie daisies that were growing next to the wall of the house.

"The tinkers are in town!" she said in a lilting singsong. She liked the sound of it, so she repeated it. "The tinkers are in town!"

_discidium_

Roy was staring at another meaningless page of Davell's reader, trying not to dread the recitation or the dinner break that would come whether he wanted it or not. The schoolroom was quiet, as Miss Strueby liked it, and there was little to distract the child from his own thoughts.

He had had a very miserable night, and he was now sleepy because of it. Mrs. Hawkeye had been sufficiently attentive yesterday to notice his bruised hands. She had not asked how it had happened, for she had known the meaning of the marks perfectly well: Roy had misbehaved in school. She had scolded him rigorously, and then bent him over a chair and smacked him with her wooden spoon despite Riza's tearful cries of, "Don't you hurt my boy, Momma! _Please_ don't hurt my boy!"

His little guardian's distress had hurt a great deal more than the actual beating, which was meant as an affront to his dignity and had not even left bruises. Roy didn't like to see Riza upset, and he hated the knowledge that he had been the cause. This, and the fear of what the next horrid school day would hold, had kept him up until late in the night—so late, indeed, that he had seen Hawkeye-sensei pass the parlour door on his way to bed.

Roy was startled from his unhappy reverie when door to the schoolhouse creaked open, and thirty-seven heads turned to see who had entered. A boy, older than the eldest male pupils, came in, herded by a tall, bespectacled young man. The boy had a look of sulky annoyance on his face as the man made him walk to the front of the room.

"Eyes on your work, everyone, please," said Miss Strueby firmly. Then she turned and spoke softly to the man. He replied, but so quietly that Roy didn't know what he was saying. So he studied the boy instead, peering cautiously over the top of the reader to do so.

The boy had tousled dark hair and enormous round spectacles. He was skinny, but unlike Roy his slenderness was not unhealthy. His face was tanned, and so were his arms, which were bared because he had pushed the sleeves of his shirt up over his elbows. Roy noticed that his clothes were too big for him, just like his own were, and the legs of his pants had been cut off at mid-calf. His long brown feet were bare, and Roy eyed them enviously.

Miss Strueby giggled nasally, and Roy noticed she was blushing. The young man glanced over his shoulder at the boy. He looked a lot like him, with the same lanky limbs, the same wild hair and the same tanned face. His spectacles, however, were half circles and perched on the edge of his long, narrow nose.

"He's halfway through the Third Reader," he said, his voice a little more audible now. "Though he seems to have—er, _misplaced_ his copy," he added in annoyance, shooting the boy a look of irritation. "I'll see that he brings it tomorrow."

"I'm sure one of the girls will let him use hers," the teacher said. There was a simpering tone to her voice that Roy had never heard before, and it wasn't very attractive.

"I guarantee he'll knock your socks off in geography. Oh, and he's a little behind in arithmetic," the man added. "Hasn't got a head for figures. You might want to put him with the Second Reader class for that."

"That won't be a problem," said Miss Strueby eagerly. She turned to the boy. "Why don't you pick a seat in the next-to-last row, and I'll see what we can do about a reader."

"Thanks," the man said. He nodded pointedly at the boy, who sighed and moved towards the empty row of seats behind the biggest boys. "Hey!" The boy stopped, and the man swatted him affectionately. "Behave yourself."

"You too," the boy said saucily. Miss Strueby giggled again. The man left the room, and the new student sat down.

One of the girls in the Third Reader class raised her hand. "He can borrow my book, Miss. I'll look on with Susan."

The teacher thanked her, and handed the book to the new boy, giving him the instructions for the lesson.

"I haven't got a slate," the boy argued. "I, er, _misplaced_ it," he added, in an obvious imitation of the man who had just left. Roy was a little shocked. He had never seen a child so blatantly disrespectful of an adult.

Miss Strueby stepped forward and took Roy's slate from his desk, picking up his slate pencil with her other hand. "Here," she said. "It's better if Roy doesn't have one anyhow: he's easily distracted."

A couple of the other boys snickered, and Dexter dug his elbow viciously into Roy's ribs. Roy felt his cheeks burn with shame, and he fixed his eyes miserably on Davell's reader. Silence fell over the classroom again.

_discidium_

The noon hour came before it was time for the First Reader classes to recite their lessons. Roy waited, as always, until most of the others had moved outside before he got up and retrieved his dinner pail.

The new boy was just outside the door, leaning against the wall of the building with one foot raised against it. As Roy came out, he pushed his glasses up his nose and bumped the smaller boy's arm with his knuckles. Having expected the usual assault, Roy tensed and flinched instinctively away, but the other boy did not move from his indolent stance.

"Hey, thanks for letting me use your slate," he said. "Easily distracted, huh?"

Roy stared wordlessly at him, wondering what he wanted.

"Don't worry about it," the newcomer said, grinning. "I am, too."

"Hey, four-eyes, welcome back!" Karl came sauntering up. "Don't you know who you're talking to? That's Roy-Roy the dumb boy. He doesn't have any parents."

"Lucky him," the older boy said lazily. He was taller than Karl, but not nearly so solidly built. "Say, any of you like marbles?"

Karl wasn't going to be that easily sidetracked, and Roy wondered anxiously if he could get back inside quickly enough. The blonde boy chortled. "Hey, four-eyes and slope-eyes!" he laughed. "Maybe they're related: the dumb beggar-brat and the dirty pedlar!"

"Tinker," the tall boy corrected. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy-looking leather pouch. "I'm serious. Any of you like marbles?" He opened the pouch and pulled out a handful of colourful glass spheres. The other boys drew nearer, curiosity outweighing the instinct to prey on the stranger. "First rate marbles, only the finest from the world-famous glaziers in Aquoya," the new boy said, swinging into his sales pitch. "Guaranteed to roll smoothly under any circumstances! Nothing like your ordinary clay miggies: just take a look!"

He thrust his hand towards little Lawrence from the primer class. "Go ahead, pick one," he said. "Actually, pick two. Today only, sample my wares free of charge." He grinned almost wickedly. "Tomorrow, they're ten _sens_ a dozen!"

The boys crowded eagerly around, Karl included. Seeing his opportunity, Roy hurried away from the group. He crouched down in the grass on the other side of the schoolhouse, and opened his dinner pail. He tore the waxed paper from his lime, and began to devour the tart fruit as quickly as he could. They wouldn't steal it today! They were too busy with the new boy and his marbles.

Remembering the way that the glass orbs had glittered in the sunlight, Roy felt a little stab of jealously, but he quickly suppressed it. He had escaped from Dexter and his brother for the first time today. That was much more important than glass baubles, however magical. He didn't need marbles, and he didn't want them. That much.


	15. Ill Considered Stopgaps

**Chapter 14: Ill-Considered Stopgaps**

Bella Greyson had been expecting Lian to open the door, but it was Mordred who answered.

"Bella!" His whole face seemed to collapse in relief. "I was just going to come and see you."

"I thought I'd stop by to talk to you about it," the doctor explained, letting him usher her into the front corridor. "I saw him yesterday, and—"

"It's getting worse," Mordred said distractedly.

"I wouldn't say it's getting _worse_," Bella soothed; "but it certainly isn't improving as quickly as it ought to, so I decided to check and see if everything is all right at home."

Mordred sighed wearily. "It isn't."

She nodded her sympathy. "I know they aren't the most pleasant thing for a child to eat, but he really does need them. I have a recipe for lime ice that might—"

"Lime ice?" Mordred echoed incredulously.

Bella realized abruptly that they were each talking about a different patient. "For Roy," she said impotently. "For the scorbutus."

"I was talking about Lian!" Mordred exclaimed, frantically impatient.

Bella bit her lip and nodded. She knew the alchemist better than anyone else, and he was nothing if not single-minded. There was no point in even trying to voice her concerns about the child until she addressed his worries about his wife.

"She's worse," she said gently. "How so?"

Mordred glanced at the staircase nervously, as though he were afraid that Lian might hear. "Come," he said, moving into the kitchen.

Riza was at the table, drinking milk from her blue tin cup. She smiled over its rim, and wiggled her fingers in greeting.

"How are you, Riza?" the doctor asked.

"Good," the little girl said. At least _one_ member of the household was well, thought Bella grimly. "Momma's sleeping."

"She fell asleep in the yard," Mordred said miserably. "She's been taking three or four doses of valerian just to make it through the day."

"And at night?"

"She's up to two and a half drams, and it doesn't hold her through 'til morning," Mordred told her. "She takes it every night now, and the nightmares are back." He chafed his hand against his brow. "There must be more we can do for her."

Bella shook her head unhappily. "I wish she would talk to me," she murmured. "Is she saying anything about Davell."

"No. Yes. No. Sometimes. She doesn't... she doesn't always think he's dead," Mordred whispered hoarsely.

"Now let me get this straight," Riza said primly. "Momma doesn't know Davell went away?"

"Of course she knows that, love," Bella soothed. "She's just very sad."

"I was sad," Riza commiserated. "I was very sad, an' I was lonesome, but then my boy came. Why doesn't Momma like my boy?"

The adults exchanged a helpless look. "Momma likes your boy just fine, _chibi-chan_;" Mordred lied.

"No she doesn't," Riza argued. "Or else why'd she hit him?"

"Hit him?" Bella echoed, frowning interrogatively at Mordred.

The alchemist shrugged. "The teacher had to use the ruler on him yesterday, so Lian paddled him with her wooden spoon," he said indifferently.

"He didn't mention that," said Bella, a little hurt in spite of herself to know that the boy didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth about his day.

"I expect he was ashamed of himself," said Mordred. "He should be. Little ingrate—making trouble at school."

"_You_ don't like my boy _either_!" Riza accused. "Why doesn't anybody like my boy? He's nice!"

"He's very nice, sweetheart," Bella told her. "And he really doesn't seem the type to make trouble anywhere at all. But Mordred, he isn't eating his limes."

"What do you mean? Of course he is. Lian sends one with him every morning." Mordred's tone made it clear that the allegation was absurd.

"Maybe," said the physician; "but he isn't eating them. He still has sores on his gums, and his teeth are loose."

"Did he tell you he wasn't eating them?" asked Mordred.

"No... but he isn't." She tried to defend the child. "They aren't exactly nice-tasting: I can't blame him for tiring of them, but we've got to find some way to make them more appetizing, because scorbutus can be very serious if left untreated. He's too weak and emaciated to survive any kind of illness right now."

Riza shook her head. "Roy-my-boy likes limes," she said. "I don't: they're icky."

"If he's wasting them, I'll wear him out myself," Mordred grumbled. "They aren't cheap, you know."

"If money is the issue, I'd be more than happy to—"

"I told you, he's getting his damned limes!" Mordred cried. "Why does everyone assume I'm short of money?"

"Because you've been short of money since you came of age," Isabella said tartly. "You're forgetting who you're talking to, Hawkeye-sensei."

"Well, I'm fine. The stipend from the sale of the mill is more than enough to feed four people—provided one of them isn't throwing away his exotic, expensive prescription fruit!" Mordred snapped. "Don't worry: I'll get the truth out of him before he starves himself to death all over again."

"Thank you," Bella said firmly, trying to calm him down. "And if you need money—"

"I don't need money!"

She closed her eyes. "I want to have Lian see a specialist," she said. "I have a classmate who works at the asylum in Central. He might be willing to come out here for a visit, but I don't think he'd see her without a consulting fee. I'm willing to—"

She stopped speaking, because Mordred had stopped listening. It had been a mistake to use the word "asylum": the moment it had left her lips, Mordred's face had hardened into a mask of grim determination.

"I'm not sending her to a madhouse," he said tersely. "She's fine. She's just having trouble sleeping. Isn't there something else you can give her? Something stronger than valerian?"

"Mordred, she needs care I couldn't provide her even if she'd let me. Please, just let me ask if Frederick would be willing to talk to her."

The alchemist shook his head resolutely. "If you can't help her sleep, just say so," he said flatly. "I'll figure something out."

Bella sighed. "I could give you a prescription for laudanum," she said reluctantly. "But please, you have to think about this. She isn't well, and she needs help."

"Fine. I'll think about it," he said, but Bella knew he was lying. "And I'll see about the boy and his limes."

Bella nodded sadly. At least that would be taken care of.

"What's a sigh-lum?" asked Riza with typical curiosity.

_discidium_

Roy tried, but he could not help limping. His feet were sore in the tight, heavy shoes, and he was too tired to cope with the pain. He had managed, somehow, to get through the afternoon's lessons without trouble. He was getting very good at learning the assigned pieces as the others recited them.

He thought about the boy with the glasses, and again felt a stab of jealousy. Everyone else had been given two of the marvellous marbles, and a lot of them would buy more tomorrow. Roy knew he had no hope of finding ten _sens_ to lavish on such a luxury, but it would have been nice to have even a pair of the pretty, glittering orbs to play with. He would have given one to Riza, of course, and they could have admired them together.

He shook off the daydream, and concentrated on the last few torturous yards that lay between him and the relative haven of the Hawkeye house. He mounted the steps with an effort, and then he was safe in the parlour. He struggled with the shoes, and peeled off the socks—bringing away a good deal of new skin with it, torn from the blisters—and then removed Davell's clothes and folded them carefully for tomorrow.

He covered himself with Hawkeye-sensei's old shirt, and then picked up Davell's dinner pail and moved into the kitchen. Riza smiled as he entered.

"Roy!" she exclaimed happily. "You're home!"

Hawkeye-sensei had been scraping potatoes at the sink. He turned around and frowned. Roy instinctively stepped nearer to Riza and wrapped his skinny hand around her plump one.

"The doctor says you haven't been eating your limes," the alchemist said. His voice was stern, but not exactly angry. "Why not?"

"I did—I have—I ate it today," Roy stammered, bewildered. He had told the doctor that he _was_ eating his limes! Had she realized that he was lying? Would she think he was wicked for failing to tell the truth? He opened Davell's dinner pail and held it out so that the man could see the green rinds left behind from dinner. "See? I ate it."

"Well, good," the alchemist grunted. "Because if you don't you'll have more to worry about than scorbutus, I promise you that." He took the pail, and then moved the potatoes on which he had been working into a pot of water. "Riza, go and fetch your jacket. We need to go to the chemist's to get your mother's medicine."

"Is my boy coming?" Riza asked.

The adult looked at Roy, barefoot, barelegged and dressed only in the cut-off shirt. "No," he said. "He's not fit to be seen in town."

"Then I want to stay, too!" Riza said stoutly.

Hawkeye-sensei shook his head. "You can't stay here alone while Momma is sleeping, _chibi-chan_. Something might happen to you."

"But—"

"No 'buts', Riza. Now do as I say," Mordred said gravely. Riza looked up at him for a moment, clearly startled by this uncharacteristic disregard for her wishes. Then she looked down.

"Yes, Papa," she said softly, then toddled from the room.

"Don't touch the stove, and don't make a mess," Hawkeye-sensei said to Roy. "And be quiet. Mrs. Hawkeye is asleep."

Then he, too, was gone, and Roy was left alone. He looked around the kitchen helplessly, and then hobbled to the parlour. There he sat down on the floor, tucking his sore feet under his skinny legs, and opened the reader. He turned to the page with the turtle on in, and stared at the words with all his might. Maybe, just maybe, if he stared hard enough the black scribbles would suddenly make sense. Then he would be able to read, and he wouldn't be punished, and he wouldn't be a dumb boy any more.


	16. Insubordination

**Chapter 15: Insubordination **

Roy was hungry. He moved his left leg ever so slightly so that it swung, weighted like a pendulum with the heavy shoe serving as the bearing. The others were bowed over their books, studying while Miss Strueby coached the big girls in algebra. She loved spending time with the eldest class: they were preparing to sit their own teachers' exams in the winter, and she was, she said, "grooming them for success". Roy often listened surreptitiously, especially during the mathematics lessons, and wished that he could have that kind of attention and assistance. The one called Mandy wasn't a very clever girl, and Miss Strueby gave _her_ all the help she needed. But maybe she wasn't as stupid as Roy.

His stomach made a burbling sound that roused a snicker from Dexter. Roy hadn't had much breakfast. It was because of Mrs. Hawkeye.

She had roused him later than usual, calling him "Roy" instead of "boy", and had tried clumsily to give him and Riza their meal. She had not really succeeded. She had had a strange, bleary look in her eyes, and she'd been walking as if she was dizzy. Her usually dark, caramel-coloured face had had an unhealthy greenish tinge to it, and right after she had poured Riza's milk, she had hurried to the sink and vomited into it. Riza, a fastidious frown on her round little face, had pushed her milk away and announced that she wasn't really hungry.

Realizing that Mrs. Hawkeye was in no condition to mete out food, Roy had been tempted to drink Riza's milk, but he couldn't. Neither pride nor fright had ever prevented him from eating, but to take something that belonged to Riza was wrong—almost sacrilegious. So he had been herded out of the house with his stomach empty and his arms full of the usual paraphernalia. On the way to school he had set his burden down in the grass and stolen some under-ripe strawberries from the garden of the house with the patio, and that was all that he had eaten since. Now he was hungry, and dinner was still an ill-defined stretch of time away.

Or not, for the teacher set down the book, smiled at the big girls, and then dismissed the students. Roy hung back, waiting until the new boy with the glasses left the building. Hoping that the decoy would work, he then hurried towards his dinner pail, and ventured outside.

As he had hoped, everyone was clustered around the two benches, between which the tinker's boy had established his shop. The boys jostled one another, eager to part with hoarded pocket money in exchange for the bright bits of glass. Some had goods to trade: sealing wax and twine, matchboxes, shoe buckles, and the usual bits of detritus that are boyhood's treasures. The girls, though except for little Mary they had no use for marbles, watched the bartering proceedings with avid interest.

Exiled from this group by their unspoken scorn and his own desire to have a few minutes of peace, without being shoved, pinched, prodded, or branded "Roy-Roy the dumb boy", Roy kept near the school building. He found a shady place, and sat down. Watching the gaggle of children warily, he opened the dinner pail, and almost burst into frustrated tears. It was empty.

Mrs. Hawkeye must have forgotten to pack his dinner. Remembering how ill she had looked, he wasn't really surprised, but that didn't make him any less hungry. He closed the pail and hugged his emaciated thighs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. It was another bad day already, and he hadn't even been punished for anything. He just hoped that Riza was okay. He hoped Hawkeye-sensei came out of his study to make sure that she had her dinner. He hoped Mrs. Hawkeye wouldn't yell at her again: Riza didn't like that at all.

Lost in worries about the little girl, Roy didn't even notice the tall boy until he squatted down and spoke to him.

"Hey, it's Roy, right?" he said. He was grinning, and though his instincts told him to run, Roy couldn't quite bring himself to be afraid. He nodded, and the tinker-child held out his hand. "You didn't take any yesterday. How come?"

In his palm rested two marbles: one a bright blue, and the other the same deep red as Riza's eyes. Roy didn't move, a little disarmed by the entire situation. He glanced anxiously over the bigger boy's shoulder, but the others were all busy clearing a place to get up a game with their new treasures, and they weren't showing any interest in him. Relieved, he looked at the bespectacled boy again.

"Go on, take 'em. Or don't you like marbles?"

Roy reached out hesitantly and picked up the red one. It caught the light, and felt cool and heavy in his hand. Yesterday he would have been delighted at the proffered bauble, but today he was hungry and worried about Riza, and a piece of coloured glass seemed small consolation for it all.

"Matter of fact," said the boy, digging in his pocket; "you leant me your slate yesterday, and I don't like to be beholden. Better have a few more."

He pressed half a dozen of the smooth orbs into Roy's hand, manually closing his skinny fingers over them. "Take 'em," he said. "I stink at arithmetic, and I don't want to figure out how much eight marbles are worth if twelve are ten _sens_."

"Thank you," Roy said softly, because he knew it was what was expected. Inwardly, he was wondering whether he could get any of the others to trade him food from their dinners for the marbles.

"Well, that cleans me out," the boy said, patting the pockets of his baggy pants to prove that they were empty. "I'll hafta bring more tomorrow, I guess. Usually the market gets saturated really quickly, 'specially in towns with money. A lot of these kids are artisans' brats, aren't they?"

Roy wasn't sure what that meant.

"You're not, though," the other boy said, studying him thoughtfully. "That chunky bully said you've got no parents. Is that true?"

Roy nodded. To his surprise, the boy didn't laugh or mock him. Instead, he swung his legs out from under himself and sat down, then nodded empathetically.

"My Mam's dead, too," he said candidly. "I killed her."

Roy's eyes widened. Killing someone was a terrible crime: worse than stealing bread, or sneaking eggs out of a henhouse, or even climbing into a shop after dark to sleep by their fireplace. People who killed other people were taken away to the big cities and hanged.

"I got stuck," the older boy went on. "I was sitting on my foot, and she started bleeding, and she died. They thought I was going to die, too—Dad and Gareth, I mean—but Ben took his hunting knife and he cut open Mam's belly, and he pulled me out. Gare said I wailed like a booted eagle. Then of course they had to figure out how to feed me, so Eli went and got a goat. Tiath says it's lucky I wasn't a girl, or they wouldn't've known what to do with me."

Roy didn't know what all of this meant, but it sounded dreadful. His confusion and distress obviously showed, for the other boy smiled.

"Don't look like that," he said. "It's not so bad. Thought you'd understand: how did your parents die?"

"The roof," Roy said quietly, and when he blinked, there was a pillar of flame seared onto the inside of his eyelids. "It fell in, and they couldn't get out. The fire killed them."

The boy clicked his tongue sympathetically. "That's what you get for living in a house," he said.

This surprised Roy. The other boy looked too well-fed and well-kept to be living the way he had for so long. "You don't live in a house?" he asked.

"Nope! Caravans for us. Every month a new town, new people to see: the open road by day, the endless sky by night—hurrah for the life of a tinker!" It almost sounded like a song, and the boy flopped down onto his stomach, bending his knees and kicking his bare feet in the air.

Roy wasn't really clear on what a tinker was, exactly. He thought it was a kind of pedlar, but he wasn't sure. He did not ask, though, because he did not want the newcomer to know how dumb he was. He waited for the new pupil to speak again, and he didn't need to wait long.

"Who do you live with? Brother? Sister? Eccentric uncle?"

"I'm staying with Hawkeye-sensei," Roy said.

"The alchemist?" the boy asked enthusiastically. "The one with the fat son? Where is he, anyway? I haven't seen him yet."

"I don't know," Roy confessed, thinking about the mysterious Davell whom Riza said was gone but who still had a bedroom, toys, clothes, and books. "Do you know him?"

"Sure. We come here every year. Last time we stayed six weeks. Dad likes to stay in one place for a while, anyway, so that I can get some schooling. Says its important." He rolled his eyes. "So does Gareth. He made me come yesterday, even though we just arrived and I was late. I _hate_ coming in late. It makes me feel like a fish out of water, you know?"

Roy knew. He thought about a fish, beached on a rock and drowning in the air. That was exactly what he felt like most of the time. Except when he was with Riza... and maybe right now. "I hate school," he whispered, emboldened by the other boy's friendly, easy manner. Then he clapped his hand over his mouth as he realized what he had said. "Please don't tell anyone!" he gasped. "I don't want Hawkeye-sensei to be angry!"

"Hey, your secret's safe with me," the other boy said. "Cross my heart, hope to die, ram a blunt awl in my eye."

Roy grimaced. That sounded absolutely horrible! Before either boy could say anything, Miss Strueby came outside and rang the bell. The dinner break was over.

_discidium_

The afternoon sun was pouring in through the windows, and the schoolhouse was unbearably hot. Roy propped his head up with his hand and struggled to stay awake while he stared blankly at the page he was supposed to be studying, but couldn't. His stomach was a hard knot of hunger—a sensation that was at once sickeningly familiar and, after two months of luxury, strangely alien.

Miss Strueby was walking up and down the room, fanning herself with the little blue book that she used when she coached the older girls. She stopped next to Roy's desk.

"Don't swing your feet," she said sharply. Roy froze, forcing his legs to stop moving. He knew that he was supposed to sit perfectly still and study quietly, but it was so hard _not_ to swing his legs. He couldn't touch the floor when he was sitting, and his ankles and feet ached terribly. Though he tried to obey the teacher, it wasn't more than a minute before he was unconsciously moving them again.

"Roy! Sit _still_!" the teacher snapped. She was on the other side of the room now, but she had sharp eyes and a keen instinct for spotting disobedience. Guiltily, Roy forced the soothing motion to stop.

He stared at the page, trying to ignore the snarling of his empty stomach and struggling to keep still. The room was so hot, and he was tired and hungry and miserable, and before long—

"I've warned you twice now!" Miss Strueby said. "Come up to the front of the room at once."

Roy hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. He hoped she hit his hands again, because he was too giddy from inanition to bear standing in the corner for the rest of the day. Timidly he walked forward, excruciatingly conscious of the snickering that was going on behind him.

Miss Strueby went to the blackboard, but instead of picking up the ruler, she took a piece of chalk. "_I—must—sit—still—in—school_," she said, using the chalk to make markings on the board. "You will copy this thirty times," she said sternly. "If you do not finish by the end of the day, you will remain behind until you do. You need to learn how to listen, young man, and if I can get nothing else into your stupid little head, I am going to teach you that!"

Roy stared helplessly at her. He couldn't copy out "I must sit still in school" thirty times! He couldn't copy it once! He couldn't spell! He didn't know the letters! He didn't know how to write! "M-miss, I—" he stammered, desperate to explain. "P-please, I—"

"Be quiet, or I'll make it fifty," the teacher said. She sat down in her chair, and resumed her leisurely fanning.

For a moment, Roy stood petrified. He couldn't do it! He looked up at the mysterious glyphs that he had been ordered to copy. They didn't mean anything to him...

And then he realized that they didn't _have_ to mean anything. He didn't need to understand them: he just needed to draw them. Trembling a little, he moved towards the board and picked up a piece of chalk. He glanced over his shoulder at the class. Four people were watching him. One was Mandy, the big girl who liked to gossip. Her expression was one of avid interest, as she witnessed the unfolding of a juicy piece of tattle. Dexter and Karl were both watching with bloodthirsty glee as their despised target was set to what they perceived as a tedious and humiliating task. The fourth student neglecting his work was the tall boy, who had his pale green eyes fixed intently on Roy through the lenses of his enormous glasses.

Roy swallowed hard and craned his neck to see the sample of the line he was to copy. A straight line, all by itself. Then a space. Two loopy arches, like upside-down "U"s next to each other. Then a real "U", the only letter Roy recognized. Slowly, excruciatingly, he copied the markings line by line and curve by curve. By the time he reached the little dot at the very end, he was exhausted, but the teacher had said that he was to it thirty times.

The Second Reader class was called up and started to recite their history lesson. Roy tried to keep writing. His hand was shaking, and he was so hot. His head was starting to feel light, but he had to keep going. If he was kept late from school, Mrs. Hawkeye would know that he had misbehaved, and she would whack him with her spoon, and Riza would cry again. That mustn't happen. He couldn't upset Riza _again_.

The Second Reader class sat down, and the big girls came up to take turns reciting parts of a long, long rhyme called _"The Ballad of the Spagyric General"_. Now Roy felt very cold, and the schoolroom and the blackboard and even the chalk in his hand seemed very, very far away. There were strange blotches obscuring his vision, and he was dimly aware... dimly aware...

"Please, Miss, he's going to faint!" someone shouted anxiously, but the voice came from so very far away that Roy could hardly hear it.

There was a pounding of feet against floorboards in some distant dimension, and a protestation from a creature of the netherworld who sounded just like Miss Strueby... and then suddenly a pair of wiry arms was wrapped around Roy's shoulders, holding him upright even though his knees had turned to jelly and would no longer support even his slight weight.

"Come on, come on," a kind voice said, and Roy caught a glimpse of flashing green eyes magnified by convex lenses. He was led to the front row, and the hands eased him down onto the vacant seat nearest the empty wood stove. "Just sit here and rest," the voice whispered. Then it grew louder and more firm. "He's not well, Miss."

"He isn't going home until he's completed all thirty lines," the teacher said. "Please sit down and attend to your work."

The new boy stomped his bare foot emphatically. "I'm telling you, he's not well and he can't do it," he snapped impudently.

Roy was too muzzy from the swooning spell to make much sense of the way that the teacher's indifferent expression turned to one of anger and almost hatred.

"Very well, Master Hughes," she said coldly. "If you wish you may write his lines for him!"

"Sounds good, thanks!" the boy said brightly.

He moved to the board, pushing past Mandy, who looked absolutely scandalized, and picked up the chalk that Roy had dropped. It squeaked against the board as the older boy resumed where the younger had left off. The writer adjusted his grip and brought the implement down again and again at precisely the wrong angle, so that each time it hit the board it let out a piercing squeak. He wrote so rapidly that Roy could hardly make out the motions of his hand. Three, four, five times he copied the sentence. Six! Seven! Eight! The bigger girls tried to resume their recitation, but it was useless. The constant _squeak!squeak!SQUEAK! _of the chalk drowned them out.

"Stop that at once!" Miss Strueby ordered. The tinker boy froze mid-stroke and grinned over his shoulder at her.

"But I'm writing his lines, Miss Strueby," he said innocently. Someone chuckled appreciatively.

"Go sit down and work on diagramming your sentences!" the teacher ordered. "And Roy, once you've had a moment to collect yourself, you may return to your seat and copy the remainder of your lines on your slate."

The tall boy turned from the board and moved back to sit down, and he winked at Roy as he passed.

"Fifth reader, please resume your recitation," Miss Strueby said, trying to hide her befuddlement. But the truth was that the insubordination of the tinker's boy had dealt a serious blow to her credibility as a figure of authority, and it was a blow from which her command of the school would never fully recover.

_Author's note: Regarding the new boy, shout out to **Dailenna**, who totally called it; and to **life incarnate**, whom I think guessed it. You ladies are psychic! (And... I'm prob'ly predictable!)_


	17. Household Rules

**Chapter 15: Household Rules **

Mordred was trying to remember if potato soup required two _bulbs _of garlic or two _cloves_, and growing progressively more frustrated with the question, when someone rapped on the front door. He moved into the corridor, a little perturbed. It had been a frustrating day.

Unable to sleep despite Lian's wholesale subjugation to her first dose of laudanum, he had left his bed shortly after four. Finding it impossible to focus on his attempts to encrypt his research notes, he had wasted hours rereading Paracelsus' _"Prognostications_". Then just after nine Lian had turned up at his door, unsteady and obviously nauseated, to announce that Riza wanted breakfast and she just couldn't manage it.

It was actually a positive sign, he reflected, remembering the day not so long ago when she had neglected their daughter entirely in favour of her desert god. Still, he had not counted on having to feed the child today.

Now Lian was in bed, with a basin by her side and her mending in her lap. When Mordred had checked in on her twenty minutes ago, Riza had been up on the foot of the bed, using her mother's legs as a fortress to be stormed by her tin soldiers. Lian had been participating passively, playing as always the part of the Fuhrer. The sight of his wife actually behaving like a proper mother—even if she _was_ immured in bed—was almost worth the inconvenience of having to try to cook supper.

Still, the last thing he needed was another interruption, and it was with some reluctance that he opened the door.

There was a rangy, bespectacled boy on the stoop, with his arm clamped bracingly around Roy Mustang's slight shoulders.

"Afternoon, sir," the older boy said. "He isn't feeling well, so I thought I'd better make sure he got home okay."

Roy looked up at Mordred almost fearfully. His face was drained of what little colour it usually had, and there were shadows like bruises under his still-too-prominent eyes.

An unfamiliar pang of pity took the alchemist by surprise. He had seen the boy looking much worse, but this was somehow different. Now he wasn't a filthy feral creature covered in rags and matted hair, or a barelegged beggar's brat wearing a man's shirt. He was just a painfully thin child swimming in another boy's clothes; a forlorn little figure whose peaked appearance was only accentuated by the rude health of the long-legged colt standing beside him.

Mordred reached out to cup his hand around the back of Roy's neck and shepherded him gently into the house. Roy stumbled a little, and the alchemist put out an arm to steady him. The boy was trembling, and Mordred could guess why. Through no fault of his own, he had missed breakfast, and Lian had probably neglected to send him off with dinner as well.

"Come on, we'll get you something to eat," he said, a little doggedly. He looked at the boy who had escorted his emaciated charge home. "Do you want to come in?"

The boy craned his neck curiously, as if trying to see past Mordred to whatever strange secrets the house might hold. Then he shrugged. "Naw, I better not. If I don't get back soon, Gareth'll have kittens." He stepped out of the doorway and wiggled his hand in a gesture of farewell. "See you tomorrow?" he said to Roy.

"Okay," the smaller boy whispered. His schoolmate started down the path towards the road, and Mordred closed the door. As it clicked shut, Roy flinched. The alchemist took hold of his shoulder and steered him towards the kitchen.

"You don't feel well?" he asked, lifting the child onto the chair that he usually occupied.

"I'm all right, sir," Roy murmured.

Mordred frowned. He looked anything but. There was a thin sheen of perspiration on his brow, and his lips were quivering. The alchemist went to the icebox and took out the bottle of milk. He poured some into a wooden mug and gave it to the child. The boy fell ravenously upon it, knocking back three enormous gulps of the nourishing fluid.

"Easy does it," Mordred said. "You'll make yourself sick." He took a hunk of yesterday's bread and started to cut it into cubes. "What did the teacher say?"

There was no answer. The child was staring miserably into the mug, and it was clear from his bearing that he had no intention of acknowledging the question. Mordred opted to bear the passive recalcitrance, and poured milk over the pieces of bread. He took out the pot of molasses and drizzled a little overtop, then set the bowl in front of Roy.

"Eat slowly," he reminded him. "I take it that Mrs. Hawkeye was not well herself this morning."

The boy cast him a very frightened look, as if he was scared to speak ill of Mordred's wife. The alchemist shrugged awkwardly. "It wasn't her fault," he said.

The boy continued to eat, obeying the command to slow down, and masticating every mouthful slowly and yet rapaciously. Feeling the need to explain, Mordred went on.

"Her new medicine... it helps her sleep, but it also upsets her stomach. She was sick," he hedged. "She didn't mean to send you off without anything to eat."

There, he had done it. Apologized to the beggar's brat whom he had taken in off the streets and saved from starvation and the ravages of infestation and disease. He could not say why, but the thought annoyed him, and any empathy he might have had for the boy dissolved. "You'll need your lime," he said. "The doctor says you don't like them. Is that true?"

"No, sir!" the boy said, almost too quickly. Mordred frowned. Was there something that the child was hiding? He took one of the hard green pieces of fruit from the dwindling supply on the counter, and cut it into six wedges.

"How is school? Are you working hard?" Mordred asked.

"School... it's fine," the child said, with only a moment's timid hesitation. "I... I'm trying very hard."

His voice seemed to crack a little, but he rammed another spoonful of bread and milk into his mouth. Mordred turned back to the pot of stock. It had to be two cloves, he thought irritably. Potato soup was an Amestrian staple, after all, not an Arugan one. If he put in two whole bulbs, they'd all be sweating garlic for a month. He picked up the cleaver and began to crush the pungent vegetable with the side of the blade. He hated cooking. It was exactly like alchemy, except chaotic, imprecise, and boring.

"S-sir," Roy said timidly, swinging his foot a little. "Sir, does Riza know how to write out letters?"

Mordred almost smiled. "No, she's a bit young for that," he said, dumping the garlic into the soup and wrinkling his nose as his eyes started to water. "You can try and teach her if you want to."

The boy said nothing. Mordred started to chop the potatoes. There were a couple of greedy slurps as Roy started on the lime. Then silence.

"If you're finished eating, go and change out of your school clothes," the alchemist said. "Then find something quiet to do until supper is ready."

"Yes, sir," the child whispered. Then with a loud _clump_ as the heavy shoes hit the floor, he was gone from the room.

_discidium_

"Gare?" The voice echoed off of the pans, colanders and kettles hanging from the ceiling of the cramped caravan, interrupting the soft, soothing squeak of the hammock ropes.

From below in the dark came a drowsy grunt. "Are you still awake?" the man moaned, half exasperated and half amused.

"Yeah," Maes Hughes said, raising one bare foot to kick the ceiling so that his suspended bed rocked from side to side. "I was thinking. Maybe this whole school thing isn't such a great idea."

"We've had this discussion, short stuff," his next-to-eldest brother said. "You need an education."

"But why?" asked Maes. "When you were my age—"

"I was still in school. Stop arguing and go to sleep."

"Yeah, but Tiath—"

"_Tiath_ had to quit school when he was ten, 'cause somebody needed to look after _you_!" Gareth said. "If we could've managed to keep him in, we would have."

"But—"

"Look, Ira finished school, and so did Eli, and I would have if I hadn't got my apprenticeship, so what's your problem?"

"This teacher. She's an idiot." Maes tucked his arm behind his head. Through the open door, he could see the embers of the campfire, and the dark shape hunched over them. Ben was still awake. When Maes was younger, he had thought that the oldest of his five brothers did not sleep at all.

"All teenage girls are idiots. Why do you think so many of them marry soldiers? Now _go to sleep_."

"She's set her cap for you," said the boy. "I wish you wouldn't do that. She kept pestering me to see if I was doing okay with the lessons. Not to mention what would happen if you two actually started _sparking_..."

"If it makes you feel any better," Gareth said, his voice devoid of affect; "I am not in the least interested. I was just window shopping. If she wants real action, she'll have to try Eli."

"Ew!" Maes said indignantly.

"If you don't want your delicate sensibilities offended, mister, then don't try to drag conversations on into the middle of the night," Gareth said in annoyance. "Go to sleep, or I'm going to gag you with a flour sack."

The threat was not meant in earnest, and they both knew it. Maes grinned briefly. Gareth was the best. Eli, Tiath and Ira all chaffed at their older brother's authority, and teased him about his overprotective and downright bossy nature, but Maes didn't mind it. True, sometimes Gare was like a mother hen, fussing and worrying and asking endless stupid questions, but despite the normal irritation of a young boy Maes knew that that was because he cared. He fussed over all of them, and the baby of the family most of all, but he was also a good friend. Maes could talk to him about anything, which was something that he couldn't say about any of his other brothers.

"I could study here," Maes offered. "Eli could help me."

"Eli's going to see that lady doctor in the morning," Gareth pointed out. "He's going to have more than enough work without trying to make a rapscallion like you buckle down and study. You're going to school, so get some sleep."

"Yeah, but..." Maes hesitated. He could tell Gareth anything, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to.

There was an exasperated sigh. "But what?"

"It's sort of like I... uhm... kinda disobeyed her pretty badly today," Maes confessed, a little sheepishly.

Gareth moaned in vexation. "Damn it, Maes..." he began.

"Hey, wait, listen!" the boy said hastily. "It was 'cause of this other kid..."

Gareth chuckled in disbelief. Neither of them were going to be getting much sleep tonight...

_discidium_

"Hey, wait!"

Roy halted, surprised by the friendly call. He turned around to see the boy with the spectacles striding after him. He was grinning, and he broke into a trot when he realized Roy had stopped.

"You want to go somewhere?" he asked.

"Where?" Roy was at a loss. He was going to go back to the Hawkeye house, as he always did after school. It had not been a bad day, by his standards. Miss Strueby had largely ignored him, he had managed to memorize the reading lesson before it was his turn to recite, and he had managed to get most of the arithmetic problems right. During the breaks, the boys were all too busy haggling with the tinker's son to bother with him. He had even been able to eat all of his dinner while Karl and the others shot marbles and insulted each other in monosyllables. Much better than yesterday.

The boy shrugged. "I dunno. Anywhere. We could go down to the bluffs and swim in the creek. Or we could go and see if there's anything interesting in town. We could try and catch a prairie chicken. We could see if the cooper has any old bands, and make a hoop. You know, have some fun."

Roy didn't know. They sounded like the kind of activities that other boys engaged in after school. He, on the other hand, went back to the Hawkeye house, changed into one of Hawkeye-sensei's old shirts, and spent time with Riza.

His helplessness must have filtered through into his expression, because the bigger boy clapped him amicably on the arm. "C'mon," he said. "Let's go and play!"

Roy shook his head. "I'm not allowed to play in Davell's clothes," he said. "I have to go back. I don't want to be late."

"Well, I'll come with you, then," the boy said easily, taking the dinner pail and the heavy reader from Roy's arms and shifting the latter into the crook of his arm with his own book. "You're all right," he said. "Those others... they're not very nice."

Roy nodded soberly. That was an understatement. They were cruel, hateful bullies. The two boys walked in silence for a minute, until Roy worked up the courage to ask a question that had been preying on his mind since last night—when he had applied it to his little blonde protectress. "S-say, uh..."

"Maes," the boy said with a flourish. "Maes Hughes, tinker extraordinaire, at your service!"

"Maes," Roy ventured. "Can you write down letters?"

"What, the alphabet, you mean?" Maes asked. "Sure. Can't everyone?"

No, everyone could not, Roy thought miserably, hugging Davell's slate to his chest. He was never going to ask _that_ question again, he thought. First Hawkeye-sensei, and now his new acquaintance had made him feel even dumber than ever when he did.

They reached the Hawkeye house, and Maes followed Roy inside. The door to Hawkeye-sensei's study was closed, and overhead Roy could hear the rhythmic creaking that meant that Mrs. Hawkeye was sitting in her rocking chair, looking out her bedroom window. He waited expectantly for the happy call of Riza, but it did not come. A little disappointed, he turned into the parlour.

Maes whistled softly, looking around at the heavy furniture and the thick drapes. "Quite the place," he said.

Roy took one of the shirts that served as play clothes, and sat down to remove Davell's shoes. After a moment, Maes noticed he was struggling, and knelt to help him. He grimaced empathetically as Roy stripped off the hot socks.

"I hate shoes," he said. "Never wear 'em if I can help it: bad enough in winter, but in the summer it'd drive me crazy!"

"I have to wear Davell's shoes when I go to school," Roy said resignedly. "Hawkeye-sensei said so."

"Hah. If Dad said so, I'd pop him one," Maes said. "Luckily, he doesn't much care what I wear so long as I'm clean and decent."

Roy fumbled with the buttons on Davell's shirt. Another boy, especially one so thin, might have been shy to undress in front of a comrade, but Roy had never learned—or did not remember—modesty. Clothes were something that you wore because it was cold and uncomfortable to go naked: that was all.

Maes, on the other hand, understood the concept of reticence, but having grown up in a closely-knit family with six men, he had never really put it into practice. He stared unabashed as Roy removed the shirt, and then whistled when he took off Davell's pants.

"Holy smoke, you're skinny!" he said, eyeing the prominent pelvis and the stomach that had now shrunk down over wasted abdominal muscles. Roy looked down at the washboard ridges of his chest, and was suddenly ashamed. As quickly as he could, he pulled Hawkeye-sensei's shirt over his head, hugging it to his body.

"I'm sorry," Maes said. "I didn't mean... hey, I'm skinny, too. Just... well... not _that _skinny."

Roy flushed deeply. Everyone always said how skinny he was: the doctor worried about it, Hawkeye-sensei talked like it was something unnatural, and Mrs. Hawkeye used it as an insult when she was impatient with him. He couldn't help it. He tried to eat all his food, just like Doctor Bella said, but his arms still looked like sticks and his thighs were still smaller than his knees.

Trying not to give in to the embarrassment, he started to clumsily fold the clothing he had just removed.

"No wonder your clothes are all too big," Maes said.

"They're not mine, they're Davell's," Roy told him softly. He set them on the side table that was in effect his wardrobe. Then he put the shoes neatly under it, and tucked Davell's socks into them.

"You sleep down here?" Maes asked, nodding at the blanket and the pillow on the sofa. Roy nodded. "By yourself?" Again, a nod. The tinker's boy whistled. "I'd be lonesome," he said. "Yesterday me and Gare were up talking half the night."

Roy didn't know how to reply. "Can I have Davell's reader, please?" he asked, trying to use the manners that Mrs. Hawkeye demanded that he use.

"Yeah, sure," Maes said.

"And his slate?" Roy asked as he set the book neatly on the table.

Maes grimaced. "You wear Davell's clothes, and you have his book and his slate," he said. "Isn't anything here _yours_?"

Roy smiled proudly, and reached under the sofa where he kept his treasure hidden while he was at school. "This is mine," he said, holding out the book that Riza's grandfather had given him. Then he picked up three of the eight marbles he had received the other day. "And so are these." It was a hoard of wealth to a child who had never before owned anything but the rags on his back, but Maes was not impressed.

"What happened to the other ones?" he asked. "I'm no good at arithmetic, but I know I gave you eight."

"I gave 'em to Riza," Roy said. "She likes them."

"Riza's the baby, right?" Maes asked. "Tiath said she's got red eyes."

"Just like this," Roy confirmed, holding up the deep carmine marble.

Maes leaned forward. "Have you ever seen him, you know, _doing _alchemy?" he asked under his breath, an eager gleam of curiosity in his eyes.

A cough at the doorway made Maes turn and Roy gasp. Hawkeye-sensei was frowning disapprovingly at them. "I made it perfectly clear that there is to be no playing in the parlour," he said sternly, fixing his eyes on Roy. Then he looked at Maes. "Perhaps you should be going," he said.

Maes looked from the adult to Roy, and back. He got to his feet. "Sure," he said. "It's almost time for supper anyway. See you in school, Roy."

Roy nodded, but he was too frightened to speak. He could tell that he had done something wrong, but he didn't know what. After all, they had not been _playing_ in the parlour, only talking.

"In future," said Hawkeye-sensei, coming into the room again after having closed the door behind the tinker's boy; "I expect you to ask permission before bringing strangers into this house. Mrs. Hawkeye is unwell, and I do not want half the village parading through here, disturbing her and spreading gossip. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-yes, sir," Roy said meekly.

The alchemist nodded curtly, then turned on his heel and left the room. Left alone, Roy carefully stowed his meagre treasures under the sofa. He understood. He wasn't allowed to bring people into the house.


	18. Lessons in Play

**Chapter 16: Lessons in Play **

Riza hopped down off of her bed and padded across the room in stocking feet. She slipped on a clean pinafore, hugging her waist with one arm to keep it in place over her blue dress. She moved quietly past the closed door of Davell's empty room and peered into the gloom of her parents' chamber.

Momma was fast asleep. The sheet covering her rose and fell with the rhythm of her breathing. Riza sighed and shook her head. Her pillow-tousled hair fell into her eyes, and she pushed it back.

She moved to the stairs. Gripping the banister firmly, she jumped down onto the bad step, which let out a 'normous _bang_! It was a very satisfying sound. She descended the rest of the way. There was no one in the kitchen, and the door to Papa's study was locked. Riza moved quietly into the parlour, where her boy lay sleeping.

He was on his tummy, with his right arm dangling over the edge of the narrow sofa. He had the tip of his left index finger in his mouth, and half of his face was buried in the understuffed pillow. His hair, which was starting to grow slowly out, was damp and clung to the margins of his face in dark tendrils.

Riza drew close to the couch and squatted down, her hands pressed together between her chubby knees. She washed his face intently, head tilted to one side.

Roy stirred a little, his finger tugging gently at his lip. Riza smiled expectantly. His eyelids fluttered and then shot open, and he sat bolt upright with a strangled gasp.

Riza laughed. "I scared you," she announced, giggling at his discomfiture.

Roy's lips moved soundlessly as he tried to regain his composure. He tugged the old woollen blanket into his lap and nodded. "You did," he said hoarsely.

Riza stood up and turned so that her back faced him. "Tie my pinny," she commanded.

Roy oblidged her clumsily. He didn't tie nice fat bows like Momma did, but it would have to do. Now fully dressed, Riza toddled around to the stack of clothing and picked out one of Papa's shirts.

"Get dressed," she said. "We can go and play."

Roy shook his head. "I have to go to school," he said regretfully.

"No you don't!" said Riza, bouncing a little in her excitement. "It's Saturday! School is closed today!" She couldn't wait: she was going to spend the whole day with her boy, and she wasn't going to be lonesome, and it was going to be a perfect, perfect day! If Momma didn't shout at her again.

"I don't have to go to school?" Roy asked breathlessly, as if he could not quite believe this wonderful news.

"Nope!" Riza said. "We can play all day!"

A radiant smile illuminated her boy's face. Riza felt a thrill of satisfaction. She liked it when she could make him smile, and he did not do it often enough.

"Get dressed," she urged. "We can play Fuhrer and Special Soldier." Riza brushed her hair away from her cheek again and said magnanimously; "You can be the Fuhrer."

_discidium_

"But I don't want to," Roy protested quietly, eying Riza's hobby horse apprehensively. "I don't want to be the Fuhrer."

"It's easy!" Riza told him. "My table is Central, so you sit an' wait. I'll ride across the plains an' over the mountain an' into the river an' through the woods, an' then I'll give you the messages."

She turned around, pointing out various features of the yard as she spoke. The gleam in her carmine eyes told Roy that she was seeing something far more exotic and exciting than a patch of overgrown grass, a heap of sand, a dirt path and a solitary elm. Imagination, however, was not his strong suit.

He shook his head reluctantly. "I don't know how," he said.

"I _told _you, it's _ea-_sy," Riza said. She took his wrist and let him to sit on the tree stump table. He tugged the corner of the shirt self-consciously over his bony kneecap: he didn't want Riza to say how skinny he was. "Sit here, an' I'll bring you the messages."

She clicked her tongue against her teeth like a practiced horsewoman, mounted her steed, adn took off at a gallop. Roy watched her skip around the yard, bobbing the head of her hobby horse up and down and coaxing it along as she rode. Her hair flew wild behind her, and her feet in their small shoes scarcely seemed to touch the grass.

At last, she rounded the tree three times and cantered to a halt. She hopped in an approximation of a dismount, and dropped her steed unceremoniously on the grass.

"Fuhrer, sir!" she exclaimed scurrying up and raising her hand in an approximation of a salute. "Major Riza reportin', sir!"

Roy waited for her to go on. He had watched her play this game before, with Mrs. Hawkeye and with her grandfather, but he had never paid much attention to the specifics of the ritual. After a good thirty seconds of silence, he realized that Riza was waiting for him to speak.

"I'm the Fuhrer," he said, giving it an honest effort.

Riza sighed. "You're s'posta say 'at ease' before my arm gets tired," she said in annoyance, looking up at her hand.

"Oh," Roy said. "At ease?"

Riza lowered her hand. "I have messages for you from East City!" She waited again, and then threw up her hands in frustration. "You're not doing it right," she said. "You're supposed to do it like this." She raised her right hand and waggled her index finger, speaking in a high, nasal voice that was actually an excellent satire of a frail old man. "I want my messages! Where are my messages? What's happening on my frontiers, Major? Tell me what's happening on my frontiers!"

Roy laughed a little. She had such a serious expression on her face, and the voice she was using was so silly. Riza saw him smile, and giggled too.

"You're a terrible Fuhrer," she confided. "But you're a nice boy."

Roy dug his big toe into the dirt and gripped the edge of the table. "I'm sorry," he said. "I told you I didn't know how to do it."

"It's okay," Riza said graciously. "Next time Grandfather comes to visit, he can teach you."

Roy nodded complacently, but he knew it wasn't that easy. He was no good at playing. The games that came so naturally to Riza were foreign to him. She could weave whole stories with her mind, dreaming up conversations and scenarios of every sort. When she played, there was a wholesale abandon to her words and actions. Roy, on the other hand, always felt self-conscious and a little lost when she wasn't prompting him.

_discidium_

Lian looked out the window. The children were in the yard, digging in the sand. She smiled and went on folding the bread dough into little rolls. She was feeling much better now, after having a couple good nights of sleep. The first dose of laudanum had left her nauseated and absolutely miserable, but that had passed. She was well again now.

The corner of her eye caught the boy pouring sand from his hand and laughing. How dark his hair was getting, she thought pleasantly. He was taking after her. And he had been such a fair baby: thin blonde wisps on his round little head. How quickly they grow up.

There were people, she knew, who thought that the boy was not all that he should be. He wasn't clever enough, they thought. He was fat. He was lazy. He was too reliant upon his mother. A nine-year-old, coming ten, ought to be more self-sufficient, they said. They didn't understand.

Poor thing, he wasn't well. That doctor Mordred liked so much had explained that there was something wrong with his kidneys. Too much of something, some chemical in his blood, made him slower and heavier than the other children. He didn't have much hair, either, and he was more prone to illness and infection. Lian disliked Isabella Greyson, but for the sake of her son she would have gone to Satan himself, so the physician became once more a frequent visitor in the house on the edge of town. She had purgatives and potions to keep the poor darling child healthy; and endless words of castigation and advice for his mother.

He shouldn't have sweets, nor be allowed to eat too much at one meal. He must be encouraged to play outside, to take excercise every day. He needed sunshine and diversions to encourage him to leave the house.

Diversions.

Lian moved a little to her left. She could see the treehouse that Mordred had built in the hopes that it would encourage their son to spend time outside. In the hopes that it would make him more willing to abide by the doctor's advice. Damned Bella Greyson's advice.

_I'm going out to play, Momma._

_Be careful, love. Don't fall._

Don't fall.

Lian shivered, and glanced briefly, reassuringly, at the two young bodies kneeling in the sand. Riza smiled and clapped her hands, then picked up a flat stick and resumed the sculpting of the structure she was working on. They were perfectly all right. They were safe. They were happy.

Of course they were happy: it was Saturday. There was no school on Saturday. It meant a respite from the bullies, always eager to mock, armed with an endless arsenal of insults. Mocking his weight, his little Ishbalan eyes, his sparse hair. The wide, generous mouth that she loved so much. Tormenting him and worrying him to tears. How many times had she had to hold him, caressing his head and reminding him that he was her own, her own sweet boy? How many times had she had to try to undo the damage that those little beasts had done?

Not the pupils alone, but also the teachers. They didn't understand. He wasn't as clever as the others, but he was so sweet and he tried so hard, and it wasn't his fault. He was ill. The doctor—that hated doctor!—said so. Something in his kidneys.

Lian did not know if she would ever forgive Mordred for refusing to teach their son at home. What did his research matter? Surely it wasn't more important than their boy's happiness. How could he say that Davell was too slow to learn anything that couldn't be taught in the village school? They had had their first real argument over that. For days afterwards they hadn't spoken. In the end, though, it had all blown over, and Lian was certain that that was the night that she had conceived Riza.

Davell had not really been very happy about the arrival of his sister, Lian remembered. After all, he had been the focus of all of his mother's attention until the little intruder, with her feathery golden hair and large crimson eyes, had arrived. A little jealousy was only natural. Even when Mordred had caught Davell pinching the little baby, Lian had understood. He didn't mean to _hurt_ her: he only wanted a little more attention. He _needed_ more attention that the baby would ever need.

Lian remembered. Her dear little boy. Her own sweet darling. She was so proud of him. He was going to grow into such a fine man.

The back door opened, and Riza's voice was heard, eager and happy. "Then we'll play with my soldiers," she said. "We can march 'em across the plains."

_I'm going outside to play, Momma._

"Okay," the boy said softly. Lian stiffened, turning to look at him. A scrawny, underfed little creature with a mop of dark hair thick enough to lift him by. She fixed her eyes coldly upon him.

_Be careful, love. Don't fall_.

The gutter brat saw her hostile gaze, and quickened his pace, crossing the room as quickly as he could and vanishing up the stairs.

_Don't fall._

The trick step went off like a gunshot. Lian turned back to her baking. She twisted one of the buns into a ring, and then started to braid another. Davell always loved it when she made different shapes.


	19. Choice of Friends

**Chapter 17: Choice of Friends**

"You sure make her mad," Maes said mildly, cranking the pump behind the schoolhouse. It sputtered once, and then started to flow in time to the rhythm of his arm.

"I don't mean to," Roy said miserably, staring down at the scuffed toes of Davell's old shoes. The teacher had set his class written work today...something about questions on page 34. Roy had not even tried to do it, and it was perhaps not surprising that Miss Strueby had misinterpreted his inaction as another attempt to disrupt her school.

"Yeah, well, you're good at it, anyway," commented Maes. "Come on, it'll make you feel better, I promise."

Roy wasn't convinced, but he did as the other boy instructed and thrust his battered palms into the pulsing stream of water. He tried to stifle a whimper as the icy fluid poured over the tender flesh.

"Spread out your fingers," Maes instructed. "The cold'll help get the swelling down."

Roy bit his lip and nodded wretchedly, forcing himself to bear the discomfort. After a minute, the water started to work its magic, and all feeling began to leech away. For a moment his hands were blessedly numb, before Maes stopped pumping and a dull baseline ache crept back.

"Here," said the bigger boy, taking hold of Roy's right wrist. He reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a bright white handkerchief. Stretching the corner over his index finger, he daubed gently at the place where the twelfth blow from the ruler had broken the skin. Roy watched as his blood stained the snowy linen with a starburst of red. Maes held his finger in place until the clotting process had a chance to start. Then he used the cloth to dry off Roy's hands, careful not to chaff too hard against the darkening bruises.

When he was finished, he grinned sardonically. "Good thing you're not a glassgrinder," he said. "You won't be able to do much with them for a couple days."

Roy didn't find this particularly comforting, but he forced a chuckling sound because the other boy seemed to expect it. Maes made a fist and knocked him amicably on the shoulder.

"You're a tough kid," he said. "So... you want to go somewhere?"

There was that question again. Roy hesitated, then shook his head. "I can't," he said helplessly. "Davell's clothes..."

"Aw, he doesn't need 'em any more!" Maes said dismissively. "Come on, let's go and see what's going on in town."

Roy stood for a moment, torn between his fear of consequences should he soil or damage the clothing he wore and the pitiful desire deep in his lonely heart to be like the other boys, even just for one afternoon. In the end, the welcoming grin of the bespectacled tinker's child settled the matter.

"All right," he said. "I guess, as long as we don't do anything too—"

"Good!" Maes said. He bent down to scoop up the two slates, the readers, and Roy's dinner pail. He managed to shift them all into one arm, and used his other hand to catch Roy by the elbow. He took off towards the village at such a pace that Roy had to trot to keep up with his long strides. "There's always something interesting to see at the blacksmith's, and I'll bet you you've got a greengrocer here. Or we could..."

_discidium_

Maes stowed the books behind a barrel, straightening quickly and glancing surreptitiously around to make sure no one had seen him do it. "There: they'll be safe."

Roy looked at him dubiously. "Are you sure?" he asked uneasily. He didn't believe for a minute that you could just leave things out of your sight and expect them to stay safe. It was yet another lesson he had learned the hard way.

That first summer, the year he had run away from the state orphanage, had been unbearably hot. There had been no rain for weeks, and the fields through which he had wandered, alone and desolate, had been horrid and dusty, and his little body had been caked with dry, itchy dirt. One especially torrid day, he had come upon a culvert. It was choked with dust and the water was dirty, but it had felt so wonderful to strip off his filthy shirt and the rough state-issued trousers. He had crouched in the grubby puddle and washed as best he could, revelling in the feel of the water on his bare skin. He had tried to rinse his clothing, too, and then laid them out on a bramble bush to dry. Then he had spread out his father's shirt, which had until then served him as a cloak, and stretched out on it to sleep in the sun, as happy as he had been since the night when his safe little world had vanished in a tower of flame.

When he woke up, shivering in the cool night air that descended like a pall over the sun-baked prairie, his clothes were gone. He had never worked out who would have taken them—or who would have _wanted_ them—but he had learned his lesson, and paid for it on many cold nights afterwards, huddled in the ever-thinning cover of his father's shirt. You couldn't just leave things unattended, and hope that they would still be there when you got back.

"Aw, c'mon!" Maes laughed, seeing his anxious expression. "We can't climb _with_ them. Nobody is going to want a couple of lousy old school books and a tin pail."

"Climb?" Roy echoed anxiously, but Maes was already climbing up onto the platform. Roy hurried after him, and then hesitated, feeling suddenly very exposed.

He was familiar with train stations. On cold, rainy nights, they were often the best place to find a sheltered corner in which to curl up. In larger towns, they were the perfect place to scavenge for scraps of forgotten food or for newspapers to stuff inside of your clothes for warmth. But they were also risky places to be. The stationmasters were always _somewhere_ about, and they were an unpredictable breed.

Once, one had grabbed him by his hair and dragged him into the coal shed to beat him viciously with the buckle end of his belt because he had been digging through the dustbins in search of something to eat. There had been one, on a bitterly cold night when Roy had been trying desperately to warm himself against the outside of his chimney, who had brought him inside the stationhouse, given him a dish of savoury stew, and let him sleep on the hearth. Most, however, would either chase him off, or threaten to turn him over to the village corporal. Roy had learned to be very careful at train stations, and strolling onto the platform as if he had a right to be there was _not_ a good idea.

Maes, on the other hand, seemed right at home. He looked around at the empty benches by the stationhouse, and then at the bare tracks. "Don't you love trains?" he asked. "Someday I'm going to ride one clear across Amestris." He walked to the far edge of the platform, where the water tower stood. It was a tall, sturdy steel tripod with a cylindrical reservoir and a long round arm that extended over the tracks. It was the tallest structure in the village, and Maes reached out for the ladder.

"Come on," he said. "You can see all the way to Kreuzberg from up there."

"Do you think we should?" Roy asked timidly.

"Sure, why not?" Maes asked.

"It's... it's awfully high..."

Maes chuckled. "It's fine. Come on!" He pushed off the platform and scurried up the ladder like a monkey. A moment later, he was hanging off the side of the tower, grinning down at the younger boy. "See? Easy."

Roy hesitated. He didn't want to do it, but he was afraid to decline. Perhaps if he did, Maes would not want to be his friend anymore. Nervously, he moved forward and closed his fingers over the rung at eye level and tried to climb. The moment he tried to shift his weight onto his bruised palm, his whole body stiffened with pain. He stumbled back onto the platform, and landed on his tailbone.

Maes was down the tower twice as quickly as he had scaled it.

"I forgot about your hands!" he cried. "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay," Roy said, blinking back tears before they could fall. "I forgot, too."

"Are you okay?" the older boy asked. Roy nodded, and let Maes take his arm and hoist him to his feet. He ruffled the inky black hair in a fraternal manner. "You gotta watch 'em, or they'll never heal."

"I—I'm sorry," Roy said, looking up at the water tower. "I wanted to..."

Maes shrugged. "No worries," he said. "We could—"

The stationhouse door opened, and a grey-haired, bearded man dressed in the standard black uniform came out. "What's this?" he asked.

Roy felt the colour drain from his cheeks, and he started to run. Maes looked after him, a little startled. "Hey, hold up—" he said. Then he looked at the man and grinned sheepishly. "Just looking for pigeon eggs," he said by way of an excuse, then sprinted away after the littler boy. "Hey, Roy! _Roy_!"

He heard Maes calling, but he had to run. He had to run, and find somewhere—anywhere—to hide. The man would call the village corporal, and—and—and—

He wanted to run, but Davell's shoes had a different agenda. It was hard enough to walk in them, heavy and clumsy and too small as they were. Roy certainly couldn't run. As he tried to run off the path and into the trees, he tripped and pitched forward, landing in the grass with a tiny yelp. As he lay there, hyperventilating with panic, Maes came trotting up, his face furrowed in concern.

"You didn't need to take off like that," he said. He fixed his pale green eyes on Roy's dark ones. "Why're you so jumpy, anyway?"

Roy didn't answer. He couldn't explain his terror to the fearless older boy. He got clumsily to his feet and rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. "It's no good," he said quietly. "I can't do it."

"Do what? Have fun?" Maes asked. "Sure you can. You're way too serious."

Roy shook his head, trying to calm down. "I c-can't."

"Tell you what," the other boy suggested. "We'll go and find something less... exciting to do. Let's see what's going on at the smithy."

His grin was absolutely irresistible, and the idea of running off and enjoying himself was still intoxicating, so Roy smiled cautiously. "I... I guess we could..." he stammered.

_discidium_

It was Monday evening, and despite a long, frustrating day of labouring over his endless sketches, Mordred was determined to have dinner with the family. He wiped his ink-streaked fingers on the rag kept on hand for that very purpose, and got up from the chaos of his desk.

He moved into the kitchen, where Lian was taking a roasted chicken out of the oven. Riza sat at the table, waiting patiently for her meal. Mordred washed his hands, dried them, and helped Lian move the bowls of vegetables onto the table. The sun was setting in crimson glory, and the gas was turned low. He adjusted the flame so that the kitchen was bright enough to enjoy.

"Papa, I builded a tower," Riza said. "It's so tall! I used all my blocks."

"That's lovely, _chibi-chan_," Mordred said. "Did Roy—" He stopped and frowned, his eyes falling on the vacant chair where Riza's foundling usually sat. "Where's Roy?"

"Who?" Lian asked vacantly. Mordred hardly heard her. He looked at the empty place on the countertop where the dinner pail belonged.

"Riza, where is Roy?" he asked sharply. "Did he come home from school?"

Riza looked at her mother, her red eyes wide. "Roy?" she said. "Momma, where's Roy? Where's my boy?"

Lian smiled complacently and picked up the carving knife. "Here, love, would you like the right wing, or the left?"

"Lian!" Mordred said sharply. "Where is the boy?"

"I'm sure I don't know," she said sweetly. "Right or left, Riza?"

"Papa?" Riza was catching onto Mordred's fear, to the cold band of dread that was closing around his heart.

"Lian! Did he come home from school?" Mordred grabbed his wife by the shoulders and spun her around. "Did he come home?"

"Momma?" Riza exclaimed. "Where is my boy?"

Lian smiled serenely. Mordred wanted to slap her. He knew she didn't like the child: had she driven him off? He wasn't well; he couldn't survive out on his own. That he _had_ survived, apparently for three years, didn't matter. He was under their roof, under their protection, and whatever annoyances and inconveniences he put them to, they had a duty to take care of him.

"Lian! Did he come home from school?" Mordred demanded again, shaking her once, firmly but not roughly. "Damn it, woman!"

She let out a little cry of indignation and tried to push him off. "Leave me alone, you bully!" she cried, eyes suddenly blazing like a strontium fire. "What do I care whether that beggar-brat came home from school or not? I hope he didn't! I hope he _has_ run off! We don't need him! We don't _need_ another child! I wish he'd go back where he came from: he's not wanted here!"

Mordred stared at her for a moment, impotent with anger and with fear. Then he let go, and Lian took a step away from him.

Riza got off of her chair and followed Mordred into the front hall. "Papa?" she said anxiously. "What are you going to do, Papa? Where are you going?"

Mordred thrust his arms into the sleeves of his greatcoat and dug the flint from his pocket. There was a lamp hanging on a peg by the door, a forgotten tool of the days before indoor plumbing. He lit it with a flick of his thumb.

"I'm going to look for your boy, _chibi-chan_," he said, as calmly as he could. "You stay here and eat your dinner."

"I want to go, too," Riza said. "I got sharp eyes: I can help you look."

"No, baby," Mordred said. "You stay here. If your boy comes back, I want you to tell him to wait for me in my study." _And keep him away from your mother_, he wanted to add, but couldn't. The poor thing, she was only three, and he didn't want to burden her any more than he had to.

"Ok-kay," Riza said bravely, her crimson eyes suddenly too sober for her tender years.

It almost broke Mordred's heart to leave her like that, frightened and distressed, but there were other priorities right now. He had to find the boy, and he didn't know where to look.

The teacher. He should find out if he went off with anyone after school... if he had even _been _to school today. Mordred racked his brain. Who was teaching school these days? Bella had mentioned it: one of the local girls. That was good, because whoever she was she would be living with her parents. Teachers from out of town boarded with a different family each week, and were harder to track down. If he could just remember who it was. Somebody had said that Mandy Wilkie, the abominable gossip, was sitting her exams, but Mordred couldn't remember if she had actually passed. Probably not. She was a stupid, pedantic, indolent creature.

He quickened his pace, heading into town. He would stop by the surgery. Bella would know what to do.

Children's laughter made the alchemist flinch. How could Lian have let this happen? She was responsible for the children. It was her duty to know where they were. She was supposed to make inquiries if they were not home when expected. She was supposed to keep them safe!

"Uh-oh."

The guilty exhalation made Mordred halt. Ahead on the path were two figures, shadowy in the twilight. The taller one had one hand over his mouth. The smaller one was scarcely taller than Riza, a rail-thin little body in a larger boy's cast-off clothes. Mordred almost laughed with relief.

"It's my fault, sir," the tall boy said hurriedly, stepping forward so that the lantern light glinted off of his spectacles. "We were playing in the bluffs, and I lost track of the time..."

Mordred brushed past him and took Roy Mustang by the wrist. "Playing?" he said, his voice low and dangerous. The word implied so much: gleeful abandon, childish thoughtlessness, an utter disregard for those who had been worried sick about the boy!

"Yes, sir. I talked him into it: he _wanted_ to come home right after school, but I thought we'd just have some fun for an hour or two. He needs to have more fun, sir, and I thought—"

"Yes, yes," the alchemist said dismissively. "Thank you for walking him home. That's all."

He started to lead the little boy off, but the bigger one did not seem to pick up on the dismissal.

"Really, sir, it's my fault he's late. I'm sorry if you were worried."

Worried. Mordred stiffened. He _had_ been worried. He had shouted at—_shaken _his wife. He had frightened his daughter. And all because two thoughtless boys had gone off to play in the bluffs without bothering to tell anyone. All memory of his concern for the stunted orphan drained away, replaced by red-hot fury.

"Run along before your parents start looking for you, as well," he said tersely. "Roy, say goodnight to your friend."

The child looked up at him, jaw slightly slackened with surprise. Then he turned to look over his shoulder. "Goodnight, Maes," he said, happily.

"Yeah, g'night," said the other boy. Then he waved, and trotted off into the darkness, his bare feet making scarcely a sound as he moved.

Mordred strode back towards the house in silence, Roy struggling to keep up with him. Only once they were actually on the little path that ran up the lawn to the door did he stop and turn on the child.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" he demanded, raising the lantern so that it shone over the boy's face. It illuminated the change from contentment to bewilderment, and then to fear.

"W-we were playing..." Roy breathed. That verb again.

Before either of them knew what was happening, the back of Mordred's hand connected with the side of the child's face, and he fell into the grass with a terrified yelp. The alchemist froze, horrified at what he had done and half-expecting the boy to get up and run away after all. But he only sat there, a collection of bones in Davell's old clothes, staring up at the adult with fear on his face.

"You've upset Riza," Mordred snarled, his anger ebbing away but his pride demanding a show of antagonism; "and you've upset Mrs. Hawkeye. Now get inside and go to bed: we can talk about your choice of friends tomorrow!"

The boy scrambled to his feet and stumbled up the steps. As he opened the door, Riza came running from the kitchen.

"Roy!" she cried, a radiant smile breaking forth on her pretty face. "You came back!"

She threw her arms about him, but Mordred came up behind the boy, a menacing figure with his long dark coat and stony expression. "Leave him alone, Riza," he said sharply. "Go and eat your dinner. _You!_" He prodded the boy between the shoulder blades, so that he gasped and pulled away from Riza. "To bed!"

He snuffed the candle and closed the door with a _slam!_, trying not to see the hurt and confusion in his little daughter's eyes.


	20. Repercussions

**Chapter 19: Repercussions**

Mordred hesitated a moment before touching the boy. He was huddled in a vaguely fetal position, and there were tear streaks on his cheeks—which were rather on the grubby side this morning. There was a purple bruise on his pale, bony jaw, and Mordred felt a pang of remorse as he recognized it as his own handiwork. Shame at last night's outburst almost made him withdraw from the room, but in the end he held his ground. Ten weeks ago, the boy had been nothing but a feral creature of instinct. Now he was learning the niceties of human society, attending school, using a fork... he and Lian had accomplished this, and if the transformation was to continue, discipline had to be firm, consistent, and enforced.

He took hold of the boy's thin shoulder and shook him gently. Roy awoke with a frightened gasp, his dark eyes casting desperately about for some route of escape. When he saw who had awakened him, he shrank back against his pillow, instinctive panic replaced with rational dread.

"Come," Mordred said, taking hold of his arm and pulling him to his feet. "I have something to say."

He led the boy across the hall and into his study. Roy looked around in wary fascination. He had never been in this room before. His eyes took in the walls of books, the heaps of paper, the braziers and crucibles and cuvets full of soft metals, and the assorted drafting tools. He was so preoccupied in taking in the unusual surroundings that he did not even seem to hear when Mordred closed the door. The alchemist turned his chair away from his chaotic desk and sat down.

"Come here,' he said in a tone that did not brook argument. The child came forward and stood before him, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Do you understand why what you did yesterday was wrong?" Mordred asked gravely.

Roy looked up at him, his expression desperately helpless.

Mordred frowned. "We were very upset when we found that you were missing. We did not know you were playing: we thought you were lost or hurt. Riza was very upset. She was worried about you."

The stricken guilt on the boy's face was perversely satisfying: he was realizing now what he had put them all through.

"Who was the boy you were with?" Mordred asked.

"Maes," Roy said quietly.

"What's his family name?"

"H-Hughes."

Mordred grimaced. "_Hughes_," he muttered darkly. That explained a lot.

Absalom Hughes was an itinerant tinsmith who could have and _should_ have purchased proper premises and settled down in one spot a long time ago. Instead, he and his rag-tag herd of sons travelled from town to town peddling their wares and their unique assortment of talents. Between them, they provided a number of important services that would not otherwise have been available to the vast rural expanses of the eastern province, but they also had a certain reputation. One, at least, was an accomplished con artist (and the irony was that no one knew _which_ one). One was a poacher, one a prankster. And the glassgrinder was such a rake that even Mordred, who neither frequented the local tavern nor played checkers at the general store, knew that "lock up your daughters: the tinkers are in town!" was a popular local proverb.

And now, apparently, there was _another_ Hughes; though given that the eldest of them had been snot-nosed miscreants when Mordred had still attended the dreary one-room school, it was possible that this one was Absalom's bastard grandchild and not his son at all. It was just his luck, Mordred thought grimly, that the runaway living under his roof should happen to fall in with a bespectacled delinquent-in-training of uncertain birth.

Roy was waiting for him to say something, and Mordred considered his options. There was no sense in forbidding the brat access to his playmate: Riza's absurd attachment to "her boy" was proof that nothing could change how one child was drawn to another. If he wanted the issue to be dealt with on his own terms, he had to be both firm and reasonable.

"Mead is older than you—"

"Maes," Roy interrupted.

"_Maes_," Mordred acknowledged. "He is older than you, and his family has different rules than those of this household. He may be allowed to run wild through the countryside well into the night. You are not."

"Yes, sir," Roy whispered.

"He may be allowed to go wherever he pleases without telling anyone what he is doing and when he will be back. _You are not._"

Again, the boy murmured, "Yes, sir."

"There are quite likely a number of other things Maes is allowed to do," Mordred continued testily; "such as going barefoot to school, climbing telegraph poles, shooting chickens and stealing sweets from Mrs. Hampton's Dry Goods, that I would be very angry to learn that you have done."

"I didn't," Roy said hastily. "We went to the train station, and then we watched the blacksmith mending a fire back, and—"

Mordred made no move to prompt silence, but suddenly the boy went very white, an expression of dawning horror spreading across his face.

"What is it?" the alchemist asked, a little concerned by the child's petrified expression. Roy stared at him, but said nothing. After a protracted silence, Mordred returned to the body of his lecture.

"You are _not_ allowed to go anywhere after school without my permission or that of Mrs. Hawkeye. Except to see the doctor," Mordred amended. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Roy said.

"You already know that you are not to invite people into the house without consulting me," Mordred went on. He had come to the concession, and he hoped the boy would accept it without argument. "However, if you wish you may play with your..." He wracked his brain for a non-confrontational noun, and settled upon the obvious choice. "..._friend_ in the back yard if his—if Mr. Hughes allows him to come. You may do this as often as you like, and without needing to ask, provided that you do not disturb Mrs. Hawkeye, and that you are certain to let Riza join in if she wishes. The yard is her territory, not yours."

"Yes, sir."

Mordred was starting to wonder if the boy could even _say_ anything else. "Very well. I want you to know that I ought to punish you for staying out so late and frightening Riza, but I am not going to. You went without supper last night, and that is punishment enough this time. Next time I promise I will not be so lenient."

Roy nodded meekly. Mordred let out a long, slow sigh. "Go wash your face and get ready for school," he said.

The boy left the room, tripping a little on the trailing hem of the nightshirt.

That was that, the alchemist told himself. The problem was solved and there would be no further incidents with the tinker's boy.

_discidium_

Roy clutched his side, panting against the pain as he loped to a stop, bent double over the stitch. He had been running as quickly as Davell's shoes would allow, and he couldn't keep it up. Standing still was almost as bad, though, so he took off at a brisk walk. He had to get to the train station right away.

He had realized it midway through Hawkeye-sensei's lecture: he had forgotten to retrieve Davell's school things from behind the barrel. As soon as the alchemist had dismissed him, he had hurried to dress so that he could retrieve them—only to find that he could not get dressed. His bruised hands were now so stiff and sore that he could not even manage to buckle the belt with its new hole punched to fit him, much less fasten the buttons.

He had called to Riza, and she had come skipping down the stairs to help him. She had laughed a little, boasting proudly that _she_ could do all the buttons on her blue dress, but she had not been mocking him, only telling him of her own accomplishments. He loved that: she didn't treat him like he was dumb even when he couldn't even dress himself. Her nimble little fingers had managed the task admirably, and by then it was time to eat breakfast. Anxious to conceal his carelessness, Roy had simply come into the kitchen and announced that he was going to school. Mrs. Hawkeye, of course, had not cared—had not even looked at him as he slipped out the back door. Once away from the house, he had hurried into the village with all speed.

He had reached the station now, and he hurried to the place where Maes had stashed their books. His heart fell from his chest and landed somewhere amid his ribs. They were gone. Weakened from the physical strain of his run and from the despairing panic that gripped him, Roy sank to his knees in the dew-painted grass.

He sat there for a long time, wondering what he should do. He couldn't go back to the Hawkeye house without Davell's things. Mrs. Hawkeye would be so angry, and Hawkeye-sensei... Roy raised his sore hand to touch the bruise on the side of his face. He didn't want the tall man to hit him again. He would have to run away.

The thought brought tears to his eyes. He didn't want to run away. He had grown so accustomed to eating every day—_several times_ every day—and to sleeping indoors, and to not having to be constantly alert, lest the village corporal spy him and haul him off to the state orphanage. He had grown used to relying on the adults to take care of him instead of having to figure out some way to look after his own needs from day to miserable day. And there was Riza.

He let out one small, panicked sob. He didn't want to leave Riza. He liked her. She was so little and kind and sweet, and she never made him feel stupid, and she called him "her boy". She was the only person who had ever wanted him, and more than anything he could not bear to give that up.

He couldn't run away. He couldn't leave Riza. Who would tell her stories on the nights when her parents were too busy, if he wasn't there? Who would help her play with her tin soldiers, or sit on her tree stump table and pretend to be the Fuhrer for her? Who would tie her pinny when Mrs. Hawkeye wasn't well? He needed Riza, but she needed him, too.

Determined and far too brave for one of his age, Roy got to his feet. He wiped his eyes with the cuff of Davell's shirt, and looked around to get his bearings. With his heart heavy with dread, he set off towards the school.

Miss Strueby was ringing the bell just as he approached the vacant lot, and Roy forced his weary little legs to move more quickly. He reached the door just behind little Mary from the primer class, and moved towards his seat. Maes was nowhere to be seen, and Roy felt a stab of betrayal. The other boy had insisted that they leave the books behind, and now he wasn't even here to hear the terrible news!

Miss Strueby closed the door and moved to her table. As she surveyed the classroom, her eyes fell on the bare desk of her favourite troublemaker.

"Roy Mustang," she said, a dangerous sweetness in her voice. "Where is your reader and your slate?"

"Here!" a voice gasped as the schoolroom door burst open and Maes Hughes came blustering in, Davell's book held aloft and Davell's dinner pail over his other arm. "Right here! Sorry, teach: running a little late. Family crisis."

He strode around to Roy's desk and put the book and the slate in front of him, then reached into his breast pocket with a flourish, producing the slate pencil. Then he navigated to the back of the room and set down the dinner pail. Before he sat down, he surveyed the room, grimaced melodramatically and confided, in a stage whisper; "Big brother couldn't figure out how to make tea."

Almost everyone giggled, or at least tittered a little. Maes squeezed Roy's shoulder, winked at him, and then slid into his own seat. "Well, Miss, what are we waiting for?" he asked loudly. "I'm here now: it's okay to get started."

Roy stared rapturously at the book. It was safe! Maes must have gone back to get it before he had even realized it was forgotten. He glanced over his shoulder at his friend, who smiled and adjusted his spectacles.

_discidium_

Roy slipped out of the schoolhouse, keeping his back to the wall. Maes had hung back to talk to Miss Strueby, and Roy was afraid that without his presence the vultures would close in. He wasn't sure he could bear that today. His hands were throbbing, and his empty stomach was roiling rebelliously.

"Hey, you forgot your dinner pail," Maes said, coming outside and leaning against the wall next to the smaller boy.

"It's empty," Roy said unhappily. It was strange. Not so long ago he had often gone two or three days without food, but now it was hard just to get through a morning if he missed breakfast.

"Oh, is it?" Maes asked mischievously. He popped the lid off, and a savoury smell assailed Roy's nostrils, making his salivary glands ache. "Rabbit pasties," said the bigger boy. "Gareth made 'em fresh this morning."

He leaned harder against the wall, and slid to the ground, crossing his legs as he went. Roy sat down next to him, and took the proffered confection. It was large and heavy, and as he sank his teeth ravenously into the thickly folded bread, he realized that it was still warm. He came away with a mouthful of fresh brown bread and onions.

"Meat's in the middle, turnip on the other side," Maes said, tucking into his. "I prefer 'em with potato myself, but Tiath did a deal with a pig farmer for two washtubs and a barrel of saltpetre, so we've got enough turnips to burn them for fuel. Wish he'd held out for a pig instead."

Roy couldn't talk: he was too busy chewing. Fortunately, Maes didn't seem to expect it.

"Gareth makes better pasties than anyone," he said. "I had one in Youswell once that was so hard you could've dropped it down a mine shaft without breaking! I tried to bludgeon Ira to death with it, but Ben made me stop. Don't know why: Ira really hates Ben. Can't stand him. But I s'pose it's my fault, really. I hope you didn't catch hell for being late? I really am sorry I lost track of the time, but it was fun, wasn't it?"

Roy nodded. Maes pointed at his side and grinned. "How'd that one happen?"

Roy looked down at the long grass stain running up his left leg. It was the product of his fall in front of the Hawkeye house. There were similar marks on his knees, from his tumble near the train station. He had been nervous about returning with Davell's clothes in such a state, but it seemed that that was one thing he wasn't going to suffer for.

"I tripped," he said, swallowing a mouthful of well-seasoned rabbit.

"Oh," Maes said, leaning forward to look at the other side of his face. "You landed on your left side, and bruised your right cheek."

Roy didn't meet his friend's eyes. "I'm not allowed to play after school," he said softly. "Not unless you come and play in the back yard."

"Ah." Maes chewed thoughtfully. Then he smiled. "So I'll come and play in the back yard," he said. "Sounds fun."

_discidium_

Gareth was watching Ira with an eagle's eye while the younger man washed the stew pot. Absalom sat on the back step of the caravan that he shared with his three middle sons, puffing indolently on his pipe. On the far side of the clearing, where the six horses and the high-spirited pony were grazing on their picket lines, Tiath was lying in the grass and staring up at the stars. Benjamin, as usual, had wandered off into the woods the moment he was finished his meal. Near the portable clay kiln that he used for his glasswork, Eli was polishing the lenses that he had spent the day grinding to perfection on his little lathe. Maes was on his stomach, watching his brother with his chin propped on his hands.

Eli chuckled and shook his head. "It's none of your business, Baby Hughes," he warned in a lilting singsong voice.

"I'm not a baby," Maes bristled. Eli was twenty-six, and compared to that ancient age, Maes really _was_ something of an infant, but it was an affront to his dignity to think that his brother still thought of him that way. "And I'm telling you, I think the alchemist hit him."

"Right, the grass stain," said Eli. "A vital clue that others might have missed." He rolled his eyes. "Forget tinker, you should be a detective."

"Yeah, but Roy's neurotic about Davell's clothes."

Eli wrinkled his nose. "He wears someone else's clothes?"

"I think they're hand-me-downs," Maes said. Being the youngest of six brothers, he was intimately familiar with this concept. "He just talks like they belong to the other kid, that's all. Anyway, Davell must be ten or eleven now: I think I remember him from last summer."

"The alchemist's kid? The one with the huge mouth?" Eli asked. Maes nodded awkwardly against the heel of his hand. "He's dead."

Maes cocked his head to one side. "That's bullshit," he said.

"Hey!" Gareth called from across the campsite. "Language, mister!"

Maes grimaced. "Yes, Mother," he called back.

"Don't you forget it," Gareth said amicably. Then, in exasperation; "Ira, for God sakes! That's _not_ clean!"

"No, true blue," Eli said, carefully wrapping a finished pair of lenses in a piece of oilcloth. "Frieda told me."

"Who's Frieda?" Maes asked, knowing he would regret it.

"Better known as the Widow Thompson up at Lone Willow Farm," Eli said. He smirked. "Frieda make love to whoever she pleases!"

Maes moaned and covered his ears, too late. "Aw, Eli, do you _hafta _kiss and tell?"

"Well, you asked," the master glassgrinder chuckled. "Anyway, she says he broke his neck or something, almost a year ago. They've only got the little girl now—and your friend the runaway."

"He's awful little," Maes said disconsolately. "I don't think they oughta knock him around."

"It's none of your business," Eli repeated. "Stuff like that happens: there's nothing you can do to stop it. Just thank your lucky stars that the only one of us who ever pounded on you was Ira."

Maes looked at his eighteen-year-old brother, once his wrestling partner, who was bent over the pot redoubling his efforts under Gareth's watchful frown. "Yeah, but just 'cause it happens doesn't make it right," he muttered.

Eli put away the last of the lenses and carefully closed the pine chest that would hold them until he had need of them. He ruffled his younger sibling's hair affectionately. "You've got a good heart, Baby," he said. "But you can't change the world any more than you can pick the next Fuhrer. Just be his friend: that's all he needs from you."

"_Don't_ call me Baby!" Maes cried, laughing as he sprung forward to tackle the lanky tradesman.


	21. Eyesight Insight

**Chapter 20: Eyesight Insight **

Bella Greyson's position on the Hamner school board was unique. She was the only member who had neither a child nor a grandchild among the pupils. She was the only member with a college education. More significantly, she was the only female. At most times, it was an advantage. The men tended to underestimate her capacity for turning debates to her advantage, and more than one important decision in the six years she had served on the board had gone her way without her colleagues ever realizing that they were being, as her grandmother had been wont to put it, "handled".

On the other hand, being the only female also meant that the teachers—particularly the young ladies—seemed to look on her as a special ally and a confidant. They often came to her with problems and petitions that they were afraid to bring to the rest of the board, and sometimes this put Bella in an awkward position.

The moment she entered the empty schoolhouse, she knew that _this_ was going to be one of those times. Jane Strueby, who had been wiping the blackboard, turned and hurried towards her.

"Oh, Doctor, I was just thinking I ought to come and see you!" she exclaimed, clearly relieved at the sight of the older woman. "That is, well, I thought that as a member of the board you might be able to help."

Bella put on a sweet smile to cover her irritation. She had disapproved of Jane's appointment: what the girl needed was a husband, not a room full of impressionable and sometimes rambunctious children. "I'll do whatever I can," she said noncommittally.

"Well, it's..." the girl hesitated. "I didn't want to go to the board: I know that some of them don't think I'm capable of keeping an orderly school, because they've known me since I was born."

Bella nodded. This, at least, she could identify with, having overcome a similar obstacle in establishing her medical practice. She still had patients to whom she would always be "wee little Bella", with bare feet and pigtails, tearing around the countryside in the company of Miller Hawkeye's grandson.

"So you thought you would come to me first," she said. "Then it's convenient that I stopped by. What's the trouble?"

Jane sighed. "There's one student I just don't know _what _to do with! He's a little fool, he doesn't apply himself, and he's constantly disrupting the class. He incites the other children to misbehave, and no matter how many times I punish him, he only finishes his lessons half the time. He and that tinker boy are going to cause chaos if I can't make them behave, but I'm not sure what to do."

"Well, you could try looking into _why_ he doesn't apply himself," the doctor said. "Perhaps he's having trouble in school."

"No, it can't be that," Jane Strueby said. "When he wants to, he can recite any lesson word-perfect. It's just that he refuses to. His class was doing their spelling, and he started shouting random letters just to make me look ridiculous. He's a mean-spirited little beast, and I don't know why anyone would want to take in a creature like him."

"Take in?" Bella said, surprised. "Do you mean Roy Mustang, the boy who's staying with Hawkeye-sensei?"

"That's the one," Jane sighed. "He's a horrid child."

"No, he's actually a very sweet little boy," Bella said, a little shocked at this harsh assessment. "He isn't the type to make trouble in school. He must be struggling somehow."

"The only thing he's struggling with is proper behaviour," the teacher said bluntly.

Bella sighed. "I'll talk to Mordr—to Hawkeye-sensei. Maybe there's something wrong at home: there must be some explanation. I'll see to it that Roy behaves from now on; I promise."

"Thank you," Jane moaned. "I don't know what else to do with him."

"Well, I'll see what can be done. There was another matter I wanted to raise, however," the doctor said. "With the tinkers in town, we have an opportunity to have the children's eyes checked. If you don't mind, I'd like the primer class through the Second Reader to come by my surgery tomorrow so that they can be examined. The older ones are welcome on Friday afternoon."

"To have their eyes checked by a tinker?" the teacher said blankly.

"Not exactly. Mr. Hughes' third son is a master glassgrinder with experience as an optician. He would be able to check the children and fit them with spectacles if they need them." The doctor could tell that the teacher wasn't impressed. "They really out to be checked," she pressed. "Surely you can spare them for one afternoon?"

Jane looked very much like she wanted to refuse, but she was only a seventeen year old girl with a second-class teacher's certificate. Bella was a grown woman, independent and confidant, a successful professional and a member of the board. She was not the sort of person Jane could argue with.

"All right," she said. "If it's important for their health."

"It is," the doctor said firmly. After exchanging a few pleasantries, she took her leave of the teacher, and walked back into town, her heart troubled. Quiet little Roy was making trouble in school? There _had_ to be some explanation.

She had every intention of hurrying over to the Hawkeye house to investigate, but as she rounded the corner she caught sight of a gangling farmer's boy on a frothing pony in the street before her house. Even before he saw her and came running up to tell her of his errand, she was flying towards him, ready to respond to whatever medical emergency had arisen.

_discidium_

"And don't _move, _you little beast!"

Riza listened as the back door slammed closed. Timidly, she peered around the doorpost into the kitchen. Momma was gone, and her boy was sitting on a chair, clutching the edges of the seat and staring down into his lap. He was shivering with fear, and probably with cold, too, for it had been a dreary, drizzly day, and the stove wasn't lit. The shouting was over, and Momma had gone outside. Riza stepped cautiously into the kitchen and approached the thin, forlorn figure by the table.

"Roy?" she said quietly, bending down a little in an attempt to catch his eyes with her own. "You gotta keep your good clothes nice, you know. For school."

He didn't say anything. Probably he felt bad because Momma had shouted at him. Momma was very scary when she shouted, and she had been furious because of the stains on Roy's clothes. The moment he had come through the door, she had started scolding him, turning him around by the shoulder and smacking him hard. Then she had undressed him so quickly and roughly that Riza had fled the room, frightened that it would be her turn next. Now she was outside, and Riza thought she was probably washing the grass-stained clothes, even though it wasn't a sunny day and Momma usually didn't do the laundry unless it was sunny.

"I got butter on my pinny today," Riza whispered, trying to make her boy feel better. "See? It made a dirty spot."

Roy didn't raise his head to look at the tiny smudge of grease. He only gripped the sides of the chair even harder, and continued to stare down at his terribly skinny legs. Unhappy because of the scene that she had witnessed and the quiet, stoic suffering of her playmate, Riza touched his arm.

"Don't be sad," she begged. "Momma won't be mad forever."

He really was shivering, she realized with genuine distress. And he looked so forlorn and unhappy, sitting there without his clothes. Determined to comfort him, she toddled from the room and went into the parlour. He had Papa's old blue shirt, which was made of soft linsey-woolsey, and was very cosy. Riza took it and carried it back to the kitchen.

"Here you go," she said soothingly, putting it on his lap. She stepped back and watched with satisfaction as he covered himself. Roy didn't fasten it, but merely wrapped it around himself like a robe or a blanket. Riza remembered that he had had a hard time doing up his buttons the last two mornings, so she insinuated herself forward and started to do it for him.

"There," she said in satisfaction. Now he was dressed again, and he didn't need to be so gloomy.

"Thank you," Roy whispered. Then suddenly he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, hugging her tightly.

Riza had to stand on the tips of her toes, and Roy was leaned uncomfortably over his gaunt lap, but the embrace continued for a long time. They both needed it desperately: an abandoned child with no one but a baby to comfort him on what had become yet another difficult afternoon, and an innocent little girl who was beginning to recognize a new and terrible side of her own mother. They comforted each other in the only way they knew how, and the physical contact was balm for each bruised spirit.

_discidium_

Doctor Bella moved among the pupils who inundated her waiting room, passing around a plate full of sugar cookies. She was smiling radiantly, as if she loved nothing more than this: to be surrounded with children, each eager to share some anecdote or boast with her.

Roy sat in the corner of the room, on the floor by the door. Behind it, Maes's older brother was doing something called "eye exams". The children each went in, one at a time, and stayed in there for varying lengths of time: most about five minutes, but one or two nearer to fifteen. Roy was awaiting his turn, and despite his general apprehension at the prospect of facing something new, he was anxious to meet Maes's sibling.

"You'll like Eli; he's great," Maes had told him that morning. "He's a lot of fun—just don't ask about his girlfriends! He's got more girlfriends than any sane person would want, and you _don't_ want to hear about them. He'll check your eyes with a candle, then he'll have you look at a card and ask some questions. Then he'll probably have you try on a couple of different lenses. Then that'll be it—unless you're like me, and blind as a bat without specs."

"Roy?" the doctor repeated, holding the door so that Lawrence from the primer class could leave the examining room. "It's your turn."

Roy got clumsily to his feet and shuffled past the other children, almost tripping when Dexter casually thrust out his leg. He looked questioningly at Doctor Bella, and she smiled.

"Don't worry: it's nothing to be afraid of," she said. Then she pushed him gently forward and closed the door behind him.

The gas had been turned low, and the room was only dimly lit. The examining table had been pushed against the wall, and opposite it there was a large card with rows of pictures printed on it, each smaller than the ones above. Next to it was a stool, on which sat a gangly man dressed in bright blue. He looked a lot like Maes, except that his hair was long and tied back with a piece of leather cord, and he wore no spectacles.

"Hello, there," he said. "You must be the kid Maes is so fond of. I'm Eli."

"I'm Roy," the child whispered.

"All right, Roy; hop up onto the bed, and I'll take a look at you."

Roy didn't see any bed, but then he realized that the man meant the table with the thin mattress. There was a four-legged stepping stool next to it, and he climbed awkwardly up. Eli took out a book of matches, struck one against the back of his front tooth, and lit a candle. It was in a strange-looking holder with a long candle and a tall tin fan that stood up behind the flame, magnifying and focusing the light.

"I'm going to cover your right eye," Eli said, lifting a smooth, oddly-shaped wooden spoon and moving it to obscure Roy's vision. He adjusted his hold on the candle so that its light shone blindingly into the boy's left eye. "Look up towards the ceiling. Now down. Now to the left. And to the right." Between each sentence he took a pause, staring carefully into the child's eye. "Now I'll cover your left," he said, and repeated the process with the other eye.

"You've had a couple of nasty knocks the last few months," he said. "Am I right?"

Roy didn't answer. He didn't want to admit that it was true: he had been in a few nasty scrapes this spring, and prior coming to Hamner, he had indeed taken a couple of brutal blows to the head. If Eli knew about those things, he might tell Maes, and then Maes wouldn't want to be his friend anymore.

"Do you ever have trouble focusing your eyes on anything?" Eli asked. "Anything close, or far away?"

Roy shook his head truthfully.

"Do the words on the blackboard or in your reader ever look fuzzy? Blurry? Lopsided?" the man went on.

"No..." Fuzzy, blurry and lopsided, no. The only trouble was that when he saw words on the blackboard or in Davell's reader, he didn't know what he was looking at. He could _see _them just fine, but he was too dumb to _understand _them.

"All right," Eli said, moving to turn up the gas a little. He pointed at the chart. "Read the fourth line for me."

The word "read" sent a dagger of dread to the very base of Roy's soul, but then he looked at the chart and felt a wave of tremendous relief. There were no words or letters on it: only pictures!

"A boat," he said. "A ball. A dog and a flower and a—"

"Whoops!" Eli laughed. "Wrong chart! Maes said you're seven years old? I'm insulting your intelligence." He moved the sheet with the pictures. Under it was a similar card, full of letters. "Read the fourth line."

"I can't," Roy said miserably. Why had he had to take away the other one? Roy knew what to say when he looked at the other one. _This_ chart was the same unfathomable cipher that he struggled with every day at school.

"Okay," Eli said, and to Roy's astonishment, he did not sound angry. He made it seem like it was perfectly normal to be unable to read the letters. "What about the third line?"

"No," Roy told him, a little less wretchedly. His faith was repaid when Eli nodded, and asked him to read the second line. "I can't," he repeated.

"How 'bout the big letter on the top?" asked the glassgrinder.

"That's a 'U'," Roy said, almost daring to feel proud of himself. At least he knew one letter, and if he knew one, maybe someday he would learn the others.

Eli sucked on his teeth and nodded thoughtfully. He opened a long, flat case and took out a pair of large, very heavy-looking spectacles. Roy saw that, unlike the ones that Maes wore, these had no lenses, but in the box there were rows and rows of monocles, each one marked with a label. Eli picked one up, and slid it into the frame of the heavy spectacles. Then he chose another for the other empty place. He crossed the room, and slid them onto Roy's face, standing back so that he could see the chart once more.

"Try the third line again," he said.

"I can't read it," Roy said quietly. Eli swapped one of the lenses for another.

"Try again."

Roy shook his head miserably. Spectacles wouldn't fix the problem! He didn't know how to read!

Again and again Eli changed the lenses, and again and again Roy tried to tell him that he couldn't read the letters, growing ever more frustrated and discouraged. Finally, the man put in another pair of lenses. These ones jumbled the room into an indistinct blur of light and shadow.

"Now I can't even _see_ it!" Roy cried in despair.

"All right, all right, calm down, buddy!" Eli chuckled, taking the glasses from his face. "We'll try that third set again, and..." He stopped, cocking his head to one side and regarding Roy curiously. "Hold on, kid. Did you say you can't even see it _now_?"

_Discidium_

Bella closed the door as the last of the students filed out, on their way back to the schoolhouse under the watchful eyes of the bigger girls who had come for them. She leaned against it and smiled. She loved children. She loved the way they spoke, the innocence of their play, the consummate seriousness with which they treated the world around them. She had always loved children, and she always would. If only...

"Another successful afternoon for Master Hughes, king of the eyeball," the glassgrinder said, coming out of the examination room and moving into her kitchen. Bella followed him, watching as he laved his hands in her sink.

"Well?" she asked. "Do any of them need glasses?"

"Four of them could use them, yeah," Eli said. "Assuming you can convince the parents they're necessary, _and_ coerce the kids into wearing them." He picked up one of her cross-stitched dishtowels and wiped his fingers vigorously. "Say, Doc..."

"Hm?" she said, wondering if he was going to try flirting with her again. He was a charming young man, but she had passed the age of responding to such flattery a long time ago.

"That runaway kid. The one living with the alchemist."

"Roy Mustang," Bella said. Realization struck. "_He_ needs specs, doesn't he? Oh, no wonder he's been struggling in school if he can't see the blackboard!"

"Naw, he doesn't need specs," Eli hedged, rubbing the back of his neck. "His eyesight's better than mine... but he's struggling in school? That makes sense. Maes said the schoolmarm has him in the First Reader class, is that right?"

"Well, yes, but if he doesn't need glasses, why does it make sense for him to be struggling in school?" Bella asked.

Abruptly, Eli Hughes looked acutely embarrassed. Bella was surprised: she had never expected to see the high-spirited, lecherous and utterly shameless young man quite so discomfited. She furrowed her brows in bewildered amusement. "What is it?" she asked.

"Uh, well..." Eli said, chaffing his hand still more awkwardly against his neck. "It's just that..."

He paused as if struggling with the question of divulging a secret that he really wished he didn't know.

"The thing is, Doc, he, um, _can't read_."


	22. Intruders

**Chapter 21: Intruders **

Riza was finishing her mid-afternoon apple when Roy came into the house. He was carrying his school things, and he looked almost happy. Riza smiled at him.

"You're home!" she announced merrily. She had spent most of the afternoon deciding what she wanted to do when he arrived, and she wasted no time briefing him on her plans. "I'm building a Headquarters castle, and they we're goin' to have the solders set up a p'rimeter." She didn't really know what a p'rimeter was, she had heard Grandfather use the word. It was something that soldiers set up.

"Maes is outside," Roy said, setting the dinner pail on the counter. "I have to get changed so that we can play."

He sounded excited, and he hurried for the parlour. Riza followed, licking her fingertips, which tasted of apple juice. "Who's Maes?" she asked. There was no such person in her itinerary.

"My friend," Roy breathed, his voice almost rapturous. He was clumsily unbuttoning the shirt that had once belonged to Davell. His hands were still darkly bruised, but the swelling was gone and he could use them again. "Hawkeye-sensei said that we could play after school as long as we stay in the yard."

"Oh." Riza watched as he put on one of the three big shirts that he still wore around the house. "Is Maes a boy?"

Roy nodded. "He's bigger than me, but he's not a bully," he said, as if the two conditions ought to be mutually exclusive. "He's nice."

He was finished dressing, and he walked back into the kitchen. Riza followed him instinctively, stopping only to take her straw bonnet from its peg in the lean-to. Once in the yard, she stopped, stricken with an unfamiliar shyness at the sight of the visitor.

He was certainly bigger than Roy: he was almost as big as Papa's pupil who had gone away last winter. He was tall, with a lean, gangling grace that reminded Riza—as it had her father—of a yearling colt. His clothes, though mostly clean, were rather too large and had been darned with such skill that only Riza's sharp eyes could spy the mending. He had tousled black hair and large round spectacles that made him look like the Wise Old Owl in G.G. Gunhold's _Collected Works for Children_. He was grinning enormously.

"You must be Riza!" he said. Riza stared at him with her large carmine eyes, and nodded. "I'm Maes. You really _do_ have red eyes!"

Riza bit her lip. She knew that she had red eyes: everyone told her so. She had Momma's eyes, they said. Once she had asked Papa how she could have Momma's eyes, when Momma still had them. He had only laughed and kissed her forehead. Most people liked Riza's eyes, but once she had met an angry man who didn't.

Papa had taken her on the train to Aquoya once, because there was an alchemist there he wanted to see, and Momma couldn't look after Riza _and_ Davell at the same time. Riza had been two years old then, practically a baby, but she remembered the rattle of the wheels, and the rocking of the floor as she ran happily up and down the aisle between the compartments. She also remembered the man, who had caught her by the arm and shouted about her eyes, calling her _mongrel_ and _zealot's brat_ and _abomination_ and _half-breed_ and other hateful things. It had been the first time anyone had yelled at Riza, _really _yelled at her. He had gone on and on until a tiny grey-haired lady had come storming out into the corridor and chased him off with a wrench. The woman had delivered Riza safely back to her father, who had fallen asleep in his seat, but ever since then the little girl had been apprehensive whenever someone noticed her eyes for the first time. There was always a chance that they would be angry.

It was not the case this time: the boy was already talking to Roy again. "You ever played knucklebones?" he asked.

Riza's spirits perked up with morbid curiosity. Knucklebones? What was that?

Roy didn't know either, because he shook his head. Maes grinned. "Well, c'mon, then. This spot's perfect."

He moved to the widest point in the path leading from the house to the midden. Here, the bare, well-packed dirt spread into a broad oval, where Riza liked to ford the river on Ruby's back. Maes knelt down, and Roy copied him. The bigger boy looked at Roy's skinny, bare legs and cocked his head to one side.

"What are you _wearing_?" he asked incredulously.

"Hawkeye-sensei's shirt..." Roy mumbled, looking down with bewildered embarrassment tinting his cheeks. "Why?"

"No pants?" Maes said.

"My boy never wears pants 'cept to school," Riza said firmly, daring to enter the conversation. The newcomer _did_ seem nice, and she was not by nature a reticent child: her initial nervousness was dissolving.

Roy made a small, miserable sound deep in his throat and stared down at the ground. Riza wondered what was wrong. He _didn't_ wear pants at home. It was the truth, after all, and her father had already instilled in her an ironclad sense of duty to the truth.

Maes gave Riza an odd look, then took a little pouch from his pocket. The little girl stepped closer, waiting with eager curiosity. He probably had the bones in there! She watched as the boy upended the sack, shaking its contents out into the dirt, and frowned a little in disappointment. They weren't bones at all! They were just little metal things shaped like stars.

The boy picked one up, put his hands briefly behind his back, and then extended both fists towards Roy. "Pick one," he said. "If you find it, you go first. If you don't, _I_ go first."

This was interesting. Riza studied his hands carefully. The right one wasn't closed quite as tightly as the left. She'd bet that was where the metal thing was hidden.

Roy touched the boy's left hand. Maes grinned and showed his empty palm. "Too bad," he said cheerfully. Digging in his pocket, he pulled out a red rubber ball. He bounced it against the ground, then reached out with a motion as quick as lightning and scooped up one of the dozen little stars. He opened his hand and plucked the ball out of the air just as it began its descent.

"There," he said, setting down the piece of metal and handing the ball to Roy. "Now you try."

Roy obeyed, dropping the ball, snatching a star, and then catching the red sphere again. A pleased smile touched his lips. "I did it!" he said.

Maes chuckled, taking the ball back. "Right," he said. " 'Cept now you've got to get _two_!"

Riza watched as he did this, and then waited to see if Roy could manage it. He did, but then they had to try to grab three. She sighed. What a boring game!

She tried to ask if they wanted to play Fuhrer and special soldier, but Maes fumbled his attempt to grab four knucklebones, and Roy laughed. They were having _fun _playing that dumb game! Nonplussed and somewhat put out, she marched across the yard and sat down on her table, frowning at the spectacled intruder who had stolen away her afternoon with Roy.

_discidium_

It was with some reluctance that Lian answered the door, and that reluctance turned to defiance when she found herself eye-to-eye with that Greyson woman.

"What do you want?" she said cooly.

"I need to speak to your husband," the doctor said. There was something urgent in her manner, and a definite discomfort in her eyes. She tried to step forward into the house, but Lian planted a hand on each doorpost and thrust out her chest to block any such intrusion.

"He's indisposed," she equivocated. In fact, Mordred had just returned to his study after emerging long enough to visit the bathroom and help himself to a glass of milk. He was probably _not_ working just yet.

"It's very important," Greyson said. "Please, Lian, I know..." She trailed off and smiled wryly. "I just need to talk to him."

"Is it a medical matter?" Lian asked sweetly, knowing perfectly well that no one in the house needed the physician's services.

"Not... exactly. Lian, I need to—"

"_Mrs. Hawkeye_," the younger woman corrected coldly. The doctor didn't even bat an eyelash.

"Mrs. Hawkeye, I need to speak to Mordred at once."

Lian felt as if she had been slapped. That woman—_that woman!—_using her husband's first name like that, as if she had a right to him, a right to this house, to insinuate herself into their lives, and tell them how to raise their children, and...

"Lian!"

The doctor's sharp exclamation cut into the manic crescendo of increasingly paranoid thoughts, and Lian could almost feel herself tumbling out of her tower of righteousness back into the banal, dusty present.

She smiled. "Yes, Doctor?"

"I need to speak to Hawkeye-sensei," the physician said, slowly and clearly. "It's very important: it concerns Roy."

Oh. Roy. The beggar's brat. The worthless, ungrateful little runaway whom Lian still thought they should ship off to Youswell. A skinny little thing like him would be a valuable labourer in the military mines.

The doctor was watching her carefully. Could she see it? Could she see the thoughts, the racing thoughts that swarmed like bees within her skull, and would not, could not, let her rest? She had to hide the thoughts. She had to hide them. They'll think you're crazy. They'll lock you away. Hide, hide! Hide! Like the hermit in the desert, hide, hide!

"Come in," Lian said. Or her lips said. She didn't remember thinking the words, but she heard them. She stepped aside so that the intruder could enter her home. Her home! Violating her home, the filthy bloodletter, murderer of children, monster...

"Mordred?" The doctor had the door of the study open, and she entered the room. "I need a moment of your time."

"Of course," said the man. Her man. _Her_ man. He wanted a real woman, one who could give him a home and children, not an old maid posturing like a man, _working_ like a man, setting broken arms and cleaning up vomit and _saving lives _like a man. A creature like that was not what Mordred wanted. He wanted her, _her_, with her eyes like the desert sunset and her skin as smooth as caramel, and her hair long and rich and dark...

Hide it. Hide the thoughts. Hide the words racing, racing, all day they had been racing...

"The children went for eye exams today—Eli Hughes offered to check the whole school," the doctor was saying. Lian closed the front door and moved to stand at the threshold of the study. Mordred was seated at his desk, and the plump physician leaned against it. Her arms were crossed and she looked very uncomfortable. Lian couldn't focus. She needed her medicine. That would stop the racing. That would make it stop.

Mordred groaned. "And the boy needs spectacles."

Lian bristled. Well, he wouldn't get them! They didn't need to pander to that brat's every need. He was lucky enough to be getting the food from their table and a place under their roof!

"No," the doctor said with a hoarse, ironic little laugh. "I thought so, too. I thought that maybe that was why he's been struggling in school."

"He's been struggling in school?" Mordred queried blankly. Lian needed, needed, needed her medicine. Like a galloping in her head, the thoughts racing around and around and around.

"Yes, yes he has," said Greyson. "And Eli found out why. He can't read."

There was a stunned silence. It jolted Lian out of the swirl of thoughts, and it was she who broke it. She laughed.

"He can't _read_?"

The other two looked at her, Mordred shocked, and Bella disapproving. "No," she said, and now it was she who sounded cool and superior. "He can't."

She turned back to Mordred and her entire aspect changed. "I don't know why I didn't think of it!" she exclaimed, berating herself with every syllable. "He's been on his own since he was four, the poor little thing. Did I think he'd learned to read in the alleys of New Optain? Of all the stupid assumptions..."

"Don't be ridiculous, Bella," Mordred said. "Of course he can read. The schoolteacher would have noticed if he couldn't."

"He can't, Mordred: Eli Hughes is sure of it. The poor boy, no wonder he only knows his lessons half the time. I'll bet he's been trying to learn them by rote, listening to the others recite. We have to do something. He can come by the surgery, and I'll tutor him."

"That won't be necessary," Mordred said, shaking his head.

"You'll take care of it?" the doctor asked. "But I thought, being so busy with your research..."

Lian bristled. Mordred, who had refused to teach Davell at home, was going to lavish his attention on this worthless, illiterate guttersnipe? It was not to be borne.

Mordred shook his head. "Of course not," he said. "I haven't got time to teach him to read. I'll speak to the teacher tomorrow. She'll just have to put him in the primary class."

"I really think he'd benefit more from one-on-one attention," Bella said. "I feel just sick when I think of him trying to keep up without even knowing his letters." She nodded her head resolutely. "I'll help him get up to speed."

Mordred shook his head. "I'll talk to the teacher. Every child in this village has learned to read in that school: why should he be any different? If he's as bright as you think—"

"_Bright_?" Lian exclaimed. "The little idiot doesn't even know how to read!"

Mordred fixed her with a quelling stare that made her courage shrivel to nothing. He turned back to the doctor. "If he's as bright as you say, he shouldn't have any difficulty catching up. Be sensible, Bella. He won't want to be singled out: he's eight years old."

"Nearly," the doctor corrected reflexively.

Nearly eight, indeed, Lian thought coldly. The little monster was probably lying about _that_, too.

_discidium_

Jane Strueby was surprised by the intruder who invaded her early morning quiet. The half-hour between her arrival and the ringing of the school bell was her time. It was a chance to gather her thoughts, shake off her sleepiness, and ready herself for the day ahead. So when the tall, grim-faced alchemist entered the schoolroom, she was both startled and annoyed.

"Can I help you, Hawkeye-sensei?" she asked politely, rising to greet him. He was a strange man, and the subject of many rumours. The village tattle fed on many different aspects of his life. His work was itself grounds for speculation: alchemy was mysterious and unattainable, and in this provincial community almost occult. Then there was his wife. They said she was half-Ishbalan, an eastern witch with eyes that could see into men's souls. And they said that since the death of her son, she was a madwoman, too. Most of the recent whispers, however, revolved around the foundling and the alchemist's motives for taking him in. Some said it was proof that Hawkeye-sensei and his foreign bride had good hearts after all. Some said it was Riza, the little girl, who had demanded the boy stay. Some said he was the alchemist's illegitimate son by a Xingian whore. Some said that Hawkeye-sensei planned to use the boy in some horrible, most likely fatal, spagyric experiment.

Jane, who hated the little beast, hoped it was the latter.

"I'm here to talk about Roy Mustang," the man said. "When I sent him off to school, I expected that the very best would be done to ensure he received a proper education."

The implication was clear: she had failed to provide it. Jane thrust out her chin in indignation. How dare he imply that she wasn't a good teacher? She was! All the other parents knew it: they had no complaints!

It was that wicked little runaway, she knew. He had been spreading lies about her.

"I do my best with all the children, sir," she said, trying to keep her voice sweet and coquettish. Old men liked pretty, flirtatious girls. Inside, she was positively incandescent. "He _is_ a very slow little boy, but I'm doing my best."

The man cast her a look of scorn. "You're a child," he said disdainfully. "They've set a babe to teach the babes, and it shows. He can't _read_, you little ninny. Doesn't even know the alphabet. Didn't you bother to evaluate him before you stuck him in with the six-year-olds?"

"I... why..." Jane stuttered. He couldn't _read_? How on earth could she have known that? He was almost eight years old—and anyway, he had come to school carrying a copy of the First Reader. What was she supposed to think?

"Reassign him and see to it that he learns," the alchemist said coldly. "Do you understand?"

"Why, yes, sir. Of course, sir," Jane said politely. Inwardly she was seething. She escorted the alchemist to the door. "I'll reassign him to the primary class today."

"Good," the man said, as if he expected no less. "I'll be checking his progress."

Then he was gone. Trembling a little, Jane managed to make it back to the teacher's table. She was young, but she was proud and she was stubborn. Both her pride and her obstinacy had been dealt a nasty blow, and she responded as any humiliated child would: with fury.

The little wretch! Why on earth had he kept that from her? To save face with his little friends, no doubt. So because he was too proud to admit that he was a little slope-eyed idiot, he had made _her_ look foolish! Now one of the parents—well, not exactly a _parent_, for the skinny brat wasn't good enough to have a proper family—thought that she was an ineffectual teacher! She couldn't admit even to herself that some of her anger stemmed from the dim awareness that he was right. She focused her attention on that horrid Roy Mustang. He had made a fool of her, humiliated her, _lied_ to her. He had disrupted the school, incited the other students to rebellion, and now shamed her in the eyes of an important (if eccentric) member of the community.

She straightened her spine and smoothed her hair, forcing herself to recover her composure. After all, she was still the mistress of this school, and he was only a worthless charity pupil. She didn't have to let him get the best of her.

An unpleasant smile visited her lips as she moved to ring the bell.


	23. Punitive Ignominy

**Chapter 23: Punitive Ignominy **

Roy looked up anxiously as Hawkeye-sensei emerged from the schoolhouse. He had been startled and apprehensive when the alchemist had announced that he would walk him to school, and downright terrified when he learned that they were early. Without the prophylactic, approving presence of Maes Hughes—who was respected and even envied, though not especially liked, by the others—Roy had been expecting a barrage of insults and worse. As it turned out, Hawkeye-sensei was even better protection than Maes: even when he was inside, out of sight and earshot, the others kept their distance and left Roy alone.

Now the man crossed the schoolyard and looked gravely at Roy. "You don't need to worry," he said, his voice low and sober. "She'll move you to the primer class. Why didn't you tell me you can't read?"

"Y-you didn't ask me, sir," Roy stammered despairingly. _No one _had asked him until yesterday when Maes' brother had stopped interrogating him about his eyes and started asking if he knew his letters.

The alchemist's face tensed, almost as if he were in pain. His hand twitched and moved spastically to grip Roy's shoulder. His hold was bracing and apologetic and oddly paternal. Roy had never been touched this way by an adult, and he almost pulled away in shock... but it felt good.

Then Hawkeye-sensei withdrew his hand. "Work hard," he said gruffly. "Bel—_Doctor_ Bella thinks you are an intelligent boy. Do not prove her wrong."

With that, he walked away with his greatcoat rippling by his heels. He shot a cold stare at the knot of boys who were staring at him, and then vanished around the corner of the first of the village buildings.

A collective murmur welled up, but no one came swarming to torment Roy. Grateful for this small mercy, he pressed himself against the whitewashed wall of the schoolhouse, waiting for the signal to move inside. Shortly before it came, Maes showed up, striding towards the schoolhouse with his bare toes turned jauntily upwards. He grinned in greeting, and Roy smiled shyly.

"So do you need specs?" he asked.

"Didn't Eli tell you?" Roy asked, surprised.

Maes laughed. "Are you kidding? He calls it doctor-patient whatchamathingy, which is just ridiculous, 'cause he's not a doctor, he's a glassgrinder. Anyway, he never tells me anything 'bout his clients. I just wish that there was a boyfriend-girlfriend whatchamathingy, too."

"Oh. He said my eyes are great," Roy told him. Eli had said that _eventually_, after pressing him gently about the letters on the eye chart and finally coaxing out the admission that he couldn't read. "I don't need specs."

"Heh. Well, can't have everything," Maes said good-naturedly. "Your loss: they're not just a useful piece of equipment; they're also a stylish accouterment." He held the frame of his left lens with his thumb and forefinger, and struck a modish pose.

Miss Strueby came out and rung the bell, and the students filed into the building. They put away their dinner pails and found their seats, and the teacher smiled pleasantly.

"Everyone can resume with yesterday's work," she said. "I have some grading to do, so please work quietly."

She sat down and took out a sheaf of compositions. Sally, the smartest child in Roy's class, raised her hand.

"Miss Strueby?" she said, when the teacher acknowledged her. "We haven't any lesson: we finished it yesterday."

A smile spread across the teacher's lips. Roy shivered: it wasn't a very nice smile at all. "Oh, _dear_," she cooed, a modicum of insincerity coating her words. "I _forgot. _And I haven't got a new lesson planned for you this morning. Well, then, you had all better take your readers and come up to the front."

The children seemed to know what was coming, for there were a couple of groans, and Dexter shot a look of pure hatred at Sally, who saw it and blanched a little. But everyone did as the teacher instructed, and moved to the front of the room.

"Please turn to page... forty-nine," Miss Strueby said, opening her own copy of the book. "Sally, why don't you start? Read the first paragraph, nice and loudly for me."

"Yes, Miss," the girl said happily. She loved to be singled out, to have opportunities to show how clever she was. Roy envied her courage. She cradled the book with one arm, steadying it with the other, and recited very clearly; "'_The Fuhrer. The Fuhrer is the leader of Amestris. He is a brave man. He is the best gen...'" _She paused, doing the thing called "sounding out", which meant that she said the word very slowly, elongating every syllable. "'_Juh-en-er-al. General. He is the best general. He leads the mil-it-ary.'_"

"_Very_ good, Sally," the teacher applauded. "Leona, please continue."

"'_The Fuhrer lives in Central City_,'" the girl said. "'_He works with the gen-er-al-s. He takes care of Amestris. He is a great man._'"

"Well done!" said Miss Strueby. Then her voice took on a horrid, saccharine quality. "Ro-oo-oy," she said. "Go ahead."

Roy held his book like the others, and concentrated with all his might. "'_The Fuhrer,'" _he recited carefully. "'_The Fuhrer is the leader of Amestris. He is the best general. He is the best general. He leads—'"_

"No, not from the beginning," Miss Strueby said. "Please start with the third paragraph, where Leona left off."

Roy stared at her. She didn't want him to recite: she wanted him to read. He felt a cold thrill of panic. Hawkeye-sensei had said, he had _said_ that she would move him to the primer class! He had said she would _teach_ him to read, and stop _expecting_ him to read! What was happening?

"I... I..."

"Come, now, don't be stubborn," the teacher went on, her voice still sickly-sweet. "Just read the paragraph, and we can all move on with our morning."

"B-but..." Roy felt suddenly very isolated and alone. He could feel the eyes of the other pupils boring into him. He was cornered, helpless, and Miss Strueby continued to press him.

"Come on," she said. "Read it out."

Roy shook his head mutely. He couldn't do it, and Hawkeye-sensei had promised—he had _promised_ to explain! Suddenly he felt betrayed by the alchemist. The beginnings of frightened, frustrated tears prickled in his eyes.

"This is no time for behaving like a buffoon," Miss Strueby said. "I've warned you about disrupting the lessons with your antics. Do you want me to punish you?"

She picked up her ruler, tapping it menacingly against the palm of her hand. Roy's knees went weak. His hands were still healing from the last time she had struck him. He didn't want her to do it again! She wasn't supposed to do it again! Hawkeye-sensei had said she would help him learn to read...

"No! No!" he yelped, backing against Dexter, who shoved him off. "N-no, please, Miss!"

"If you won't read your lesson..." she said, a clear caveat in her voice.

Maes shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Hey, Miss, leave him alo..."

"Silence, Master Hughes!" Miss Strueby snapped. She whirled on Roy. "Hold out your hands!"

He didn't want her to hit him again! How could she hit him again? Hawkeye-sensei had promised to explain! Terrified and bewildered, Roy choked out; "P-please, no, Miss! Please, I can't!"

She stopped, and the ruler vanished behind her back. She smiled a horrible, cloying smile. "Can't what?" she asked.

"I c-can't read!" Roy blurted out. Why didn't she know? Hawkeye-sensei had said that he would tell her. Why didn't she know?

There was a silence. A couple of the pupils exchanged surprised looks. Dexter snickered.

"You _can't _read, or you _won't_ read?" Miss Strueby asked.

Roy suddenly felt like he had wandered into a trap, but he didn't know where the trigger was. Because he couldn't see it, he couldn't avoid it. "I can't," he said. "I don't know how."

This time, someone giggled, and a couple of the bigger girls started whispering.

Miss Strueby smiled again, an oddly triumphant look in her eyes. "You _can't read_?" she asked. "How old are you, Roy?"

"Seven," he said softly, still not certain why she was doing this.

"_Seven_," said Miss Strueby, surveying the class. "_Seven years old_, and you can't even _read_. I knew you were a naughty child, Roy Mustang, but I never realized that you were stupid as well."

Roy felt a hot flush of shame igniting on his cheeks. He wished that the floor would swallow him up, but Miss Strueby wasn't finished.

"Well, surely, a big boy like you at least knows his _letters_," she said. "Why, little Mary—how old are you, Mary dear?"

"I'll be five, Miss," the child said. "My birthday is coming on Sunday!"

"So you're four," the teacher said. "Little Mary is only four years old, and _she_ knows all of _her_ letters! Would you say the alphabet for us, please, Roy?"

Roy didn't know what to say. He wasn't even sure what the alphabet _was_. He thought it had something to do with which letters came first, but he wasn't sure.

"Come on, Roy. Or don't you _know_ your alphabet?"

"N-no, Miss," he whispered.

Her smirk widened. "I can't hear you," she said. "Repeat that, please.

"N-no, Miss," Roy said, forcing more volume into the words.

"No, what, Roy?"

"I d-don't know my alphabet."

"Louder, please," she sang out.

"I don't know my alphabet!"

Half the children laughed. Roy looked around at their unpleasant, leering faces. Even Maes was staring at him in disbelief. Even Maes thought he was stupid. Roy-Roy the dumb boy.

"Well, then, how do you spell your name?" Miss Strueby went on.

"I d-don't know!" Roy choked out. It was almost a sob, and he tried to reign in his frustration and his mortification. The room seemed to rollick with laughter.

"He can't even spell his own _name_!" Miss Strueby giggled, clearly enjoying the response of her audience. "Roy Mustang, you are by far the _stupidest_ child it has been my misfortune to teach." She went to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote something on the board. Then she smiled. "Oh, I'm _sorry_," she cooed. "I forgot: you can't _read_ it. Would someone like to read this for Roy?"

One of the girls in the Third Reader class put up her hand.

"Yes, Polly," the teacher said.

The girl giggled. Indeed, it was hard for her to speak through her laughter, but she managed to make her voice carry through the whole room. "Roy Mustang is a stupid boy," she read.

The hilarity of this was infectious. Roy hung his head wretchedly, his insides burning with humiliation as the others laughed. He felt sick with shame. It was true: he was a stupid, stupid boy. He was dirty and worthless and Good For Nothing, and he didn't belong here with normal children. He was too stupid to be here. He belonged out there, with the wild animals and the dirt and the garbage. He was a stupid boy, a stupid, stupid, stupid boy.

"Take your slate and sit down in the front row," Miss Strueby said. "If you do not know your letters, you will have to be in the primer class. No," she said after a moment's thought. "Mary, Lawrence and Tom are all _clever_ children. _They_ know their letters. You can't be in _their_ class!" She walked to the back of the room and picked up a tall stool, then carried it to the front of the room. "You'll be in your _own_ class, you stupid little creature." She set the stool down next to the board, under the incomprehensible writing. "Sit!" she ordered.

Roy picked up his slate, and reached for Davell's book. Miss Strueby shook her head.

"Can you read that book?" she asked viciously.

"N-no, Miss," Roy stuttered.

"Then leave it! Sit!"

Consumed by humiliation and the knowledge that everything she said about him was true, Roy struggled to climb onto the stool. Once he was settled on the makeshift pillory, Miss Strueby took the slate from his hand, scrawled a figure on it, and thrust it back to him.

"That's an 'A'," she said bluntly. "Copy it down, if you aren't too much of an idiot to manage it."

Then she turned and sent the rest of the students back to their seats. Roy dared to look up from his slate at the six dozen eyes fixed on him. His lower lip quivered, and he bit it. The others were still snickering, and whispering behind their hands, but Miss Strueby did not tell them to be quiet. Roy felt half sick with shame. He was a stupid, stupid child. Worthless. Stupid. He couldn't even _read_! He deserved this...

And worst of all, Maes—who had been his friend—was staring at him with numb horror on his face.

_discidium_

Maes finally tore his eyes away from the sight of the skinny little black-haired boy perched precariously on the high stool, struggling to balance his slate so that he could write on it. 

The sight sickened the kindhearted tinker's son, and he was powerless to do anything.

He bent his head over the geography lesson, but he couldn't focus on it. He could still hear the riotous laughter, and the teacher's cruelly gleeful voice as she said "you stupid little creature". Maes was a high-spirited child, and a bit of a rascal, but he also had a very soft heart. He couldn't bear to watch another creature suffering: he wouldn't even go poaching with Ben unless he promised not to use snares. The anguished humiliation in the eyes of his friend was almost more than he could bear.

The worst part was that he knew it wasn't over. Miss Strueby had finished her public flagellation of the unfortunate child, but the real assault on his self esteem would begin the moment she dismissed the students for recess. Then, free from the restraints of adult supervision, the schoolyard vultures would swoop down on their prey.

He would have to help Roy, Maes knew. He wouldn't be able to stop all of it, but perhaps he could blunt the onslaught of insults and abuse. Certainly he could make sure that the pent-up energy of the mob did not turn violent. Determined to protect his friend as best he could, Maes picked up his slate pencil and got back to work.

When the moment of truth arrived, however, Miss Strueby looked up from her desk. "You are all dismissed for recess," she said. "Even the _remedial _class," she added, looking pointedly at Roy. "Mandy, tell the younger students what 'remedial' means, please."

Maes clenched his teeth with fury. She was pretending to be a good teacher, while just giving everyone a chance to laugh at Roy again.

"It means he's so stupid that he needs to redo things everybody else has already done, Miss," the big girl simpered.

Giggles spread infectiously.

"Thank you, Mandy," said Strueby. "Dismissed. Oh, Third Reader class, you will please remain behind so that I can remind you of a few important points about your geography assignment." She looked pointedly at Maes, who had been about to hurry to Roy's side as the younger boy hesitantly moved towards the door.

"Aw, Miss, I'm fine with it," he said. "I don't need any help: I'm already ahead in geography."

"Nevertheless," she said; "I need to speak to the class. Go _outside_, Roy," she ordered in a very condescending voice. "You know, where the sky and the grass are."

"He's not an idiot!" Maes snapped. He looked helplessly at the younger boy, who seemed to have some idea of what was waiting for him beyond the confines of the schoolhouse. Maes tried to smile reassuringly. "Go on, buddy," he said. "I'll be right there."

Roy hesitated, but left at last, and Maes had to stand there with four stupid girls, pretending to listen while the teacher blithered about scale and cartography... all the time knowing exactly what was happening outside. The moment Strueby dismissed them, Maes was out the door like the devil was on his heels.

The children were all near the tree with the swing, crowded around laughing and jeering. "Roy-Roy the dumb boy; doesn't know his letters!" they chanted. "Roy-Roy the dumb boy; doesn't know his letters!"

"Hey, dummy! How do you spell 'stupid'?" Dexter heckled.

"Hey, stupid! Who hit you?"

"Who hit you this time?"

"Roy-Roy the dumb boy..."

"Hey, dummy!"

Maes pushed his way through the horde of nasty little wolves. At the centre of the crowd, Roy was stumbling to and fro, changing direction each time one of the bigger boys brought a fist down on his back. His legs were trembling, and he had the dazed, terrified look of a blind calf. Dark blood was trickling from his nose, and there was an ugly bruise on his left wrist where someone had twisted his arm. Karl seized a fistful of his hair, and the little boy cried out in pain.

"Leave him alone!" Maes shouted, shoving Wesley aside and moving menacingly towards Karl.

The husky boy only tugged harder, shaking his arm so that Roy had to hop to and fro in an attempt to lessen the agony in his scalp. "Roy-Roy the dumb boy, doesn't know his letters!" he sneered. He kicked the child's shin, and a panicked yelp of anguish escaped Roy's lips.

Maes launched forward, a taut mass of energy and righteous anger. "I said leave him _alone_!" he hollered, and there was a loud _crack!_ as his fist connected with Karl's mouth. The bully lost his hold on Roy, who fell to the ground in a heap of loose clothing. Then with a nimbleness that spoke of intimate acquaintance with danger, he scrambled up and vanished through the throng of bodies. Maes hardly noticed: Karl tried to deal him a reactionary blow, but he danced out of the way. His next punch, too, hit the blonde boy soundly, and again he eluded injury himself.

But then Wesley and the others surged forward, and suddenly Maes was hemmed in on all sides. He ducked a wayward fist, but caught a blow in the ribs. "That's right, you lousy bullies! Pick on someone your own size!" he shouted. Then he didn't have time for any more exclamations, pithy or otherwise, because he was embroiled in a brawl against half a dozen schoolyard thugs.


	24. Winds of Change

**Chapter 24: Winds of Change**

"Sent home from school," Tiath said, scowling melodramatically as he wrung out the rag over the pail of frigid water that Ira had brought from the creek. "Shame on you."

He wadded up the cloth and plopped it onto his brother's eye, which was swelling shut and would be gloriously black by nightfall. Then he wetted another rag and stared dabbing at the copiously bleeding wound on the boy's forehead.

"I hope you made the little punk sorry," Tiath said viciously, glancing towards the smaller caravan, where Eli was crouched, talking softly to Roy. The smaller boy was white and trembling, wrapped in Maes' quilt and huddled on the suspended step. The glassgrinder was trying to stop the sluggish trail of blood that was oozing from the child's nose.

"Punk_s_," Maes corrected. "There were six of them."

"Older than you, I hope?" asked the journeyman tinker.

There was a hangdog pause. "Not exactly," said the boy.

Tiath hissed. "Damn it, Maes, you can't beat up littler kids!"

"Tell _them_ that!" protested the child. "They attacked Roy, and he's as little as they come."

"I can see that, but if you go on keeping seven-year-olds out 'til dark, and getting into fights with ten-year-olds, the villagers are going to run us out of town."

"I think Karl's twelve," Maes said sullenly. He squirmed as Tiath pressed on the gouge in his temple. "Ow, Tia, that hurts!"

"Yes, and it's going to need a stitch," Tiath said. "Hey, Gare! Get over here and bring your kit: Baby's bleeding to death."

"Don't call me Baby," Maes hissed, hopping desperately that Roy hadn't heard: how humiliating would that have been? Luckily, his friend was too busy trying not to make eye contact with Eli.

Gareth poked his head out of the door of the larger caravan. "In the next few minutes?" he asked.

"No, probably not," Tiath said. "I think he might last another hour or so."

Gareth vanished back inside, and Maes rolled his eyes. "You're so amusing," he said dryly. "I don't need stitching."

"Yes you do, or it'll scar," Tiath said sagely. "You don't want to mess up your handsome face. If you ever want to catch a girl..."

"You're a fine one to give the kid advice about love," Eli laughed over his shoulder. "_You_ couldn't catch a cold!"

"Shut _up_!" Maes exclaimed, clapping his hands over his ears and then flinching. "Ow..."

"Easy does it," Tiath said, taking hold of his wrists and feeling the bruises on his palms. "Damn. What is this woman, a fuller? I've seen cart wheels do less damage than this."

"It's nothing," Maes grunted. "She just likes her ruler. Is Roy okay?"

"He's just fine," Eli said. "A little scared, hey, buddy? But you're fine."

Roy nodded, then startled a little as Gareth came out of the larger caravan, his sewing box in his hand. He knelt down in front of Maes and frowned at the deep cut in his forehead.

"You've got to stop getting into these scrapes," he said. "You know how expensive silk is these days?"

He took out a spool of white thread and a slender needle. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he prepared the suture. Maes removed his glasses, and tilted his head to one side. Gareth drenched a corner of his handkerchief with whiskey from his hip flask, and used it to clean the wound. Then he took two quick, neat stitches, tied off the thread, and clipped it.

"Thanks," Maes muttered. He replaced his spectacles and rubbed his brow with the side of his thumb. "I think I took one too many knocks to the head," he said. "Sounds like a swarm of hornets in there."

"I want you to lie down for a while," Gareth said. As Maes opened his mouth to protest, he raised a warning finger. "No argument, mister. You disobey me, and I'll haul you off to see the doctor."

Maes grimaced miserably. "I gotta take Roy home," he said. "Somebody has to tell the alchemist that it wasn't his fault. He wasn't fighting, no matter what that lousy teacher says. They were pickin' on him 'cause he can't read, and _that's_ her fault, 'cause she's never taught him anything and then she shamed him in front of the whole school! I—"

He leaned over and vomited quietly into the grass. Gareth reached out with practiced hands to support him while he retched. Tiath snatched up the dipper and was at the ready when the fit stopped. Maes rinsed his mouth with the proffered water, spat, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand and grinned sheepishly.

"Definitely one too many knocks to the head," he said.

"Come on." Gareth helped him to his feet. "Time to lie down."

"But Roy..." Maes argued. His brother shook his head firmly.

"I'll take him home, and I'll explain," he said. "You get some rest."

Tiath laid out a blanket in the shade of the larger caravan, and Gareth helped Maes lie down, taking the opportunity to feel his skull for soft spots or unexpected contusions. To Tiath he said, "If he falls asleep, wake him every twenty minutes. It's probably just a concussion, but it doesn't pay to take chances. Maes, you stay right here 'til I get back, understood?"

"Sure," Maes said complacently. He was sore and he was tired, and a nap was starting to sound awfully good. He saw Gare and Tiath exchange a worried glance, which he correctly interpreted as concern over his docility. "But you tell Mr. Hawkeye that it's not Roy's fault. She set him up. She's a real bitch."

"Language!" Gareth warned, but he was smiling. Maes curled onto his side, cautious of his left flank, which was aching badly. Gareth sighed a little and carefully removed the boy's glasses. "Your heart's in the right place, Maes, but sometimes I wish your head was a little more firmly attached to your shoulders," he said ruefully.

Maes grinned. He had his brother's approval, and he knew it.

_discidium_

Mordred Hawkeye listened carefully while the dark-haired man explained. The alchemist said nothing, and he knew that this was making the speaker nervous—but how else could he react to a tinker's son who had come to tell him that the boy living under his roof had been sent home from school for fighting?

One had only to look at Roy, who was sitting on the parlour rug and watching the two adults warily, to know that he had not instigated any brawl. The child was too skittish even to stop glancing at the door: he would never have started a fight. Still, the man seemed to think that Mordred would misconstrue the story in that direction, for he kept making excuses for the boy. At last, the rambling explanation petered out into an apologetic; "So I thought I'd better let you know."

Mordred rubbed his chin pensively, and looked at Roy again. He seemed largely unhurt, save for a crusting of dried blood about his nostrils. "Is your son all right?" he asked.

"Brother, not son," said the Hughes man, adjusting his spectacles. "He'll be fine. He took a couple of hard knocks—six against one; what do you expect?—but I think he's just a little concussed."

"What did the doctor say?" Mordred asked.

"We didn't bother her," said the other man. He grinned a little sheepishly. "It isn't the first time one of us has got himself into this sort of scrape. Though there usually isn't a third party involved," he added, glancing in Roy's direction.

"Well, thank you for bringing him home," the alchemist said. "Would you..." He cast about for the appropriate social nicety, and his eyes fell on the sideboard with its dusty decanters. "Would you care for a drink?"

"No, thanks: I'd better be getting back," said the tinker. He got to his feet, and Mordred rose to see him out. "You take care, kiddo," the man said as he passed Roy.

The two men moved into the corridor, and Mordred closed the front door behind the unwanted guest. He stood there for a moment, contemplating his options. Then he gathered his composure and moved swiftly into the parlour. Too swiftly, in fact, for he startled the child. Mordred brushed past him and sat down in the armchair by the disused fireplace.

"Come here," he said, crooking his finger at the boy. Roy got to his feet and crossed the room hesitantly. He was obviously afraid that some form of punishment was imminent. "Hold out your hands."

Tears sprung at once to the boy's charcoal-grey eyes, and he began to tremble. "P-please, sir, n-no," he stammered in abject terror. "Not... not that, p-p-please..."

The alchemist held out his own hands. "Let me see them," he said, and he was surprised at how gently the words came out.

So was the child, for suddenly he obeyed almost without thought. Mordred caught hold of his wrists and drew him nearer, then used his thumbs to coax back the curled fingers. His jaw tightened as he saw the raised, shiny welts that would be black bruises by the morning. The right hand had borne the brunt of the assault, and there was a gash running parallel to the boy's life-line where the skin had been split.

Mordred frowned ominously. He was familiar with this form of punishment, but ordinarily it was only a mild deterrent: a few sharp, stinging and above all embarrassing slaps to castigate a troublemaker. This, however, looked like someone—a strong and stupid young cow, he thought angrily—had been taking out her inadequacies with all the spiteful energy she could muster. These bruises were not the marks of well-warranted discipline: they were the marks of abuse.

Roy was watching him with wide, anxious eyes. Mordred had to speak, but his options were limited. "You were punished for fighting?" he said. The child nodded mutely.

Mordred bit his lip, hesitating for one more moment before he acted. Once he did this, there was no going back, and when Lian found out what he was going to do, there would be hell to pay, but he had no choice. He knew that there was no way that the school board would dismiss a teacher (the daughter of the village postmaster, no less) just because she was victimizing an alien orphan under the custody of the eccentric alchemist who lived on the edge of town. He had forfeited his family's influence in local politics a long time ago, when he had taken up the mysterious science so foreign to the simple provincials, married a half-Ishbalan from Central, and sold the family mill. Until this moment, he had never regretted the loss of that power, but it was done now, and it was far too late to change it.

So there was only one thing that he _could_ do to protect this undernourished waif whose wellbeing had been thrust upon him by his three-year-old daughter and his childhood friend. If Lian disapproved (and she would; she most certainly would), she would just have to be unhappy. It had to be done.

"Bring your slate here," Mordred said. "And your pencil."

Apprehensive but obedient, the child collected the necessary articles from the table, gripping them clumsily in his brutalized hands. He held them out for the alchemist to take, but Mordred took his elbow instead, and turned him around. Then he put one hand on each emaciated hip, and lifted the child onto his knee. He took the slate, wiped it clean of its clumsy printing with the side of his hand, and drew a bold figure.

"This is 'A'," he said. "It's the first letter of the alphabet. It makes the sound 'ah', as in 'apple'; and the sound 'ay', as in 'April'. Can you think of some other words that start with the 'ah' sound?"


	25. The Curse of the Furies

**Chapter 25: The Curse of the Furies **

It took Lian the better part of a week to notice the new arrangement.

Mordred was in his study with the two children. He was working on yet another sketch. Behind him, Roy and Riza were lying on the carpet, engrossed in the work Roy was doing on the slate. He was writing out his letters slowly and carefully, and naming them to Riza.

"This is 'D'," he said softly. "'D' makes the 'duh' sound. Dog and damp and doctor."

"Dragon," Riza added. "Doll."

"Drop," said Roy. "Drink, dream, dress, d-d-dummy."

"What's dummy?" Riza asked.

"Me," Roy said quietly. "I'm a dummy. A dumb boy."

He wasn't really, Mordred thought. In fact, he was uncommonly bright. He seemed to have no difficulty with the idea that letters represented sounds, and he had learned the entire alphabet in six days. Of course, these were theories that most children picked up two or three years earlier than he was, so one had to account for the fact that he was developmentally ahead of the average primer student. Still, he was dedicated, and seemed eager to learn. In that respect, he was superior to Mordred's last pupil.

The alchemist almost corrected the child's self-deprecating statement, but stopped himself. To do so would have meant acknowledging that the children had been talking, and then he would have to make Riza leave. She was in here on the clearly stated condition that she be silent, disturbing neither her father nor her boy.

The door to the study slid open, and Lian came in. "I've brought you your snack, Riza darling," she began. Then she stopped dead, having spied the other child. "Why aren't you at school?" she said sharply. "You naughty child—

"Peace, Lian," said Mordred. "The boy is studying at home for now."

She turned to stare at him. "At home?" she said hoarsely. "_Here_?"

"That's right," Mordred said as levelly as he could. He could see the storm on the horizon, blowing up into a mighty gale. He could see it, but he was powerless to stop it. "That Strueby girl keeps a poor school, and he will not be attending until there is a change in teachers."

Lian stared at him in disbelief. "Until there is a change in teachers?" she said incredulously. "That could be months. Years, even, if she doesn't catch a husband. You mean to tell me that you'll be teaching this... this _guttersnipe _at home until that happens?"

"That is what I said," Mordred told her. "He needs attentions that she is unable or unwilling to give, and I intend to provide that until some more satisfactory arrangement can be made."

It was out now, and he waited for the onslaught to begin. She was going to be absolutely incandescent with anger.

To his surprise, she laughed. "_You?_ She exclaimed. "The almighty alchemist, the brilliant scientist, stoop to teaching an ignorant beggar's brat? The man who wouldn't even take city-educated apprentices because they didn't meet his exacting standards?"

"I'm not teaching him alchemy, I'm teaching him the alphabet," Mordred said testily. "There's a difference."

For a moment they stared at one another, his pale eyes locked to her dark crimson ones. Then Lian curled her lip.

"You can't mean it," she snarled, her voice so low that it could scarcely be heard.

"I do mean it," Mordred said. "He will study at home as long as that spoiled chit is teaching.

"You—you hypocrite!" Lian cried, exploding from her precarious shell of control. "When your own son was struggling you didn't lift a finger, and now you want to—"

"Davell wasn't struggling!" Mordred bit back. It was a delusion under which Lian had been labouring for years. "He had a strong foundation in reading and ciphering—a foundation that _I_ gave him—before he ever got near that school. Martins would catch it when he was having trouble, or we would, and we'd help him. This new little idiot's another matter entirely!"

"He was bullied! They tormented him and you let it go on!" Lian shouted. "I begged you—_begged_ you to keep him home, and you wouldn't!"

"He was teased by a couple of ignorant boys," Mordred said, trying to stay calm and reasonable. "It never went further than name calling, and it certainly never became violent."

"Violent?" Lian glanced over her shoulder at the boy, who had his arm wrapped almost protectively around Riza's shoulder. Both children were watching the quarrel with wide, wary eyes.

"That's right," Mordred growled. "Last week the local toughs attacked him in the schoolyard. They bloodied his nose and his shin is still bruised. The boy who tried to defend him was beaten so badly that he wound up concussed. Then the teacher saw fit to flog their hands as punishment for fighting. Not only could they have been seriously hurt, justice was poorly served. I'm not going to put the boy into a position where that might happen again."

"Justice?" Lian cried. "Justice? Where is the justice in doing for a stranger what you refuse to do for your own child? I'll show the worthless little pauper justice!"

Before Mordred could stop her, she turned and kicked Roy squarely in the ribs. He fell back away from Riza, curling reflexively into a ball and using his arms in a frantic attempt to shield his head. Lian let loose a howl of rage, and seized him by his hair, shaking him and striking out repeatedly with her foot

Shocked at this show of violence, Mordred was momentarily petrified. Riza, however, sprung to her feet and smacked her mother's thigh with all the strength in her little arm.

"Don't you hurt my boy!" she shouted. "Momma, don't hurt him!"

She hammered with her fists against the woman's leg, and Lian whirled, swatting the little girl across the side of her head. Riza landed on her tailbone with a resounding _thud!_ and Lian turned her attention back to the boy, foul insults spilling from her lips as she kicked him again and again.

He had been strangely detached from the scene, unable to interfere, but when Riza let out a shuddering, hiccoughing sound that was almost a sob, Mordred sprung from his chair. He seized Lian by the arms, lifting her up and wrenching her away from the child, who was now lying very still. "Lian, stop it!" he barked, dragging her back across the room so that the desk stood between them and the children. "Stop it!"

He turned her around and slapped her soundly. The string of profanity stopped as abruptly as if a sabre had plucked out her tongue, and she stared at him, shocked but oddly dissociated from her surroundings.

"Davell is ill," she gasped. "He's not well. He needs to stay home, where he's safe."

Behind her, Roy Mustang tried to scramble to his feet. He couldn't quite do it, for he was dazed from the assault, but he scurried to Riza on his hands and knees, catching her by the arm and herding her into the far corner of the room. He pressed her into the space between the two bookshelves, and then crouched in front of her. With the wild terror and defiance in his eyes, he looked almost like a mother wolf guarding her young as he watched the adults, alert for any sign of a fresh attack.

His fear and the shock on Riza's innocent face filled Mordred with an intractable fury. He slapped Lian again, and reflected distantly that it felt good to do it. "_You _needed him to stay home!" he rebutted cruelly, saying what he had never before been spiteful enough to say. "You never wanted to let go! If it had been up to you, he never would have left the house. He wasn't that sick: he could have lived a normal life if you had just left him alone to do it!"

"If _you _hadn't forced him to school he would have been happier!" Lian countered hoarsely, hatred dripping from her words. "You heartless bastard."

"He would have been smothered! He had to learn how to interact with children his own age, instead of sitting around the house being petted by you all day, and tormenting the baby in his free time!"

"You pushed him too hard! You always did!" Lian shrieked, struggling against his hold on her arms. There was a wild madness in her eyes and she tossed her head so that her loose hair flew. "If you hadn't tried so hard to make him a man instead of letting him be a child—but you never cared what you were doing to him! You never loved him as I did, so caught up in your precious alchemy and your damned daughter! You never wanted him. You—you did it on purpose!"

Mordred felt his limbs go cold, and the color drained from his face. She knew Davell was dead, he realized abruptly. For the first time in months, she really knew that he was dead, and she remembered how he had died, too. "Lian..." he croaked helplessly, the old remorse and self-doubt flooding suddenly back.

But she was in an ecstasy of rage and couldn't hear him. "You did it on purpose!" she repeated. "You built that death trap _knowing_ it wouldn't hold him! You wanted him to fall! You knew he would—w-would—"

It was terrible to watch. She backed away from Mordred, her face contorting horribly, twisting and arcing painfully as she fought the brutal onslaught of the truth. Her eyes, which until this moment had been blazing with the fires of her people's desert hell, were suddenly opaque as two sandstone orbs. She clawed at her throat and let loose a raw ululation of pure torment. It was an inhuman sound, and it made the hairs on the back of Mordred's neck stand on end. The cuvets of alkali metals rattled in their racks, and the children cringed against one another, covering their ears and closing their eyes.

Lian crumpled to the ground, sobbing wretchedly and digging her nails into the dusty floorboards. Horrified, Mordred dropped beside her.

"Lian! _Lian_!"

Her limbs were rigid and her whole body shook with the force of her anguish. Mordred cast frantically for aid, and his eyes fell on the two terrified children in the corner.

"Go for the doctor!" he said, locking eyes with Roy Mustang. The boy stiffened, pressing himself closer to Riza. "Go! Run, you little fool, _run_!" Mordred shouted.

Roy scrambled to his feet and tried to drag Riza with him as he bolted from the room. She tugged her arm from his grip, and the boy left her behind. Mordred could hear him stumble against the umbrella stand in the corridor, and then the front door opened. Riza let out a little yelp as she realized that her boy had abandoned her, but then Lian let out a terrible, sundering wail that frightened the girl into silence.

Dimly aware that a three-year-old had no business witnessing such a scene, particularly when her mother was at its centre, Mordred cast a half-hearted order over his shoulder. "Go upstairs, _chibi-chan_," he said numbly. He was hardly conscious of the fact that Riza did not move.

Lian writhed, trying to claw at her temples, and Mordred gripped her wrists. She fought him, moaning incoherently in her torment. He had read of the curse of the Furies, the mythical harbingers of madness of which the ancient texts spoke, but never before had he seem something so evocative of that forgotten evil.

_discidium_

The life of a country doctor was a gruelling one. Bella Greyson had no colleagues to fall back on when she needed rest or respite: she was the only physician within fifty miles. She cared for the population of Hamner, about nine hundred people all told, and offered services to the dozens of farms and cotholdings that dotted the countryside. She was the midwife, the coroner, and the archivist for the small community. She also served on the school board, consulted for the town council, and advised the village corporal when he wound up in situations out of his depth.

So, understandably, quiet afternoons were a coveted treat.

Today, the surgery was quiet. There were no mothers coming with earache-afflicted toddlers or colicky babies. There were no old men in the waiting room, looking for sympathy and camphor rubs to treat their lumbago. No unexpected labours in the village or the countryside. No tabletop tonsillectomies or inflamed appendices.

In light of this unexpected lull, Bella had taken the luxury of a long, hot soak in her tub. Then she had made herself a proper dinner for once, enjoyed it thoroughly, and cleaned up the dishes. Then she had retired to her empty consulting room to lounge on the examining table and read that book that she had been meaning to pick up since New Year's.

She was just starting chapter two when there came a frantic hammering upon the door. Though it was rapid and clearly panicked, the noise was weak. Bella hurried through the waiting room, opened the door, and caught Roy Mustang before he pitched forward onto her mat.

He was quivering, his sparrow-thin chest heaving desperately beneath Mordred's cast-off shirt as he tried to catch his breath. There was an ugly bruise forming on his cheekbone, and his lip was split and bleeding.

"Roy!" the doctor cried, gathering him up into her arms and cuddling him instinctively to her soft bosom. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"It's—it's M-M-Mrs. Hawkeye," he choked out, still struggling to drag enough air into his lungs to stop the spasms ripping through his diaphragm. "She's had som-some kind of f-f-f-fit!"

Bella didn't wait to hear more. She shifted the child onto her hip, snatched her bag from the table where it always stood, awaiting such emergencies, and ran from the house. She didn't bother with the door, knowing that Mrs. Parsons across the way would come out to shut and lock it for her.

The livery stable where her faithful Milly was housed was three buildings up from the surgery. The stable boy understood the importance of his duties, and could have the horse in full tack in under three minutes, but today Bella wasn't going to wait. She opened the stall, set the child on the docile mare's broad back, and thrust her bag into his hands. With her hand on Milly's jaw, she led the beast hurriedly out into the sun, then planted one hand firmly on the mare's shoulder and swung up behind Roy.

The boy looked absolutely terrified, perched as he was on an animal more than twice his height. Well, thought Bella, he was about to get a fair sight more frightened. "Squeeze tight with your knees," she told him, wrapping one hand snugly around his waist and using the other to gather a bundle of Milly's mane. She dug her heels into the horse's side, and a moment later they were off at a gallop.

To her surprise, the child did not cry out. He merely pressed himself back against her stomach, and squeezed his legs against the beast's flanks as hard as he could. It was not the first time Milly had carried her mistress without the benefit of saddle and bridle, and she followed the cues perfectly as Bella let her through the heart of town, shouting out warnings to the other traffic.

The shopkeepers and their customers were treated to the uncommon sight of sedate Doctor Greyson tearing through the village, riding bareback with her skirt flying up to expose her boots and pantalettes, her unruly hair flying in a loose plait behind her, and her arm wrapped around a skeletal, half-naked child as she hollered like a drill sergeant and egged her poor horse mercilessly on.

The Hawkeye house at last came rushing towards them. Bella slid off of Milly's back as if she were a limber student of twenty, and not a grown woman more than twice that age. She grabbed Roy and lifted him down, leaving him on the grass as she snatched her bag from his arms and ran through the opened front door.

"Here!" Mordred's frantic voice called from his study. "Oh, god, Bella, in here!"

The doctor hurried into the room. The alchemist was on his knees, struggling with his wife who seemed lost in a frenzy of self-mutilation. Hardly noticing Riza cowering in the corner, or the frightened boy who had limped into the house after her and was now clutching the doorpost for support, Bella dropped her bag on the alchemist's desk and pulled out one of her hypodermic syringes, and an ampoule of morphia. She drew up the full dose—enough to sedate a husky farmhand—and then knelt next to the alchemist. She held the glass syringe in her teeth and wrapped a leather strap around Lian's forearm, pulling it tight against the buckle to raise a vein.

"Hold her arm, Mordred, and hold it still!" she ordered. The distraught husband obeyed her, using his legs to keep Lian from striking the syringe from her hand. Bella flicked the slender purple rope that popped out against the brown Ishballan skin, and plunged the needle into the vessel, pushing the drug into Lian's body. The woman cried out like one in a trance, then went abruptly still as the opiate swept through her bloodstream and incapacitated her.

There were tiny rivulets of blood running down her cheeks, where her nails had dug into her smooth skin. The front of her dress was torn, and half of her buttons were lying on the floor. Bella pulled the rest open and used all of her strength to pop open the busk of the other woman's stays. Since the corset was laced snugly, this was not easy, but they gave way with a _ping_ of warping metal. Lian pulled the garment away and tossed it into the corner. She looked up at her old friend, who was watching her with numb, distant horror.

"Let's get her into bed, sensei," Bella said firmly. "Then you can tell me what happened."


	26. What Must Be Done

**Chapter 26: What Must Be Done**

Roy sat on edge of the kitchen table, trying not to slouch, because that brought the pain back. Hawkeye-sensei and Doctor Bella had carried Mrs. Hawkeye upstairs. Then the doctor had lifted Riza's skirt to check her backside, and had her father make some ice to hold against her bruised cheek. Now the little girl was sitting in the alchemist's lap, fast asleep with her head on his breastbone, and it was Roy's turn.

"She kicked him," Hawkeye-sensei was saying. His voice was flat, devoid of emotions. "She grabbed his hair and she kicked him, and I couldn't stop her. I couldn't even move. Riza tried..." His voice broke a little and he kissed the crown of his daughter's golden head. "But I couldn't even move."

The doctor licked the corner of her handkerchief and blotted the blood from Roy's split lip. "She's had a psychotic break, Mordred," she said softly. "I'm sorry, but it's time to come to terms with the fact that she isn't well."

"She was just upset," the alchemist said weakly. "That's all..."

The doctor lifted the shirt over Roy's head, guiding his arms out of the sleeves as she gently removed it. She took one look at his side, and flinched. "Well," she said flatly. "That's the first time I've seen a cracked rib."

Hawkeye-sensei looked annoyed. "You're a doctor!" he groused. "You've treated hundreds of cracked ribs!"

"Oh, I've _treated_ hundreds," the physician said. "But this is the first one I've _seen_." She pointed at one of the boot-shaped bruises on Roy's side, and he looked down, curious despite his pain. Sure enough, there was a dip in one of the prominent ridges that circled his chest. When the doctor spoke again, she sounded angry. "She's a danger to herself, and she's a danger to the children, Mordred. She needs to be sent away."

The alchemist stiffened so violently that Roy was afraid he was going to wake Riza. "No!" he snapped. "I'm not sending her away."

"The way I see it, you have no choice!" the doctor said. She was feeling Roy's ribs now, steering carefully clear of the cracked on. "She's broken this boy's rib, and you're lucky it wasn't Riza's tailbone, too! The next time she loses control, she could do irreparable damage." Roy drew in a sharp gasp as she touched another tender spot. The doctor petted his face gently. "I'm sorry, baby," she said softly. "That one's an intercostal bruise. A _bad_ one," she added, glaring at the man.

Hawkeye-sensei shook his head wretchedly. "There must be another way," he moaned. "I can't send her to an asylum, Bella. I can't do it. She's..."

He shuddered a little, bending low over Riza.

"She's my wife," he whispered brokenly.

"I have to tell you, Mordred, right now I don't have much sympathy for that argument," Bella said tersely. "Roy, honey, hold onto my arm. This is going to hurt."

Roy obeyed, bracing himself against the doctor's elbow. She placed one hand on either side of the crack on his rib and pushed. Agony blinded him, and he dug his spindly fingers into her arm. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't do that: he would wake Riza if he cried out. So he leaned in towards the physician and waited wretchedly for the pain to go away.

"It's just a crack," Doctor Bella said at last. "He's still going to be in agony for the next few days. Mordred, I know you love her, but it isn't fair to put the children in the middle of this situation!"

The alchemist used his free hand to chafe at his mouth. "She's sick; it's not her fault..."

"No, it isn't," said the physician, pulling a roll of linen bandages from her bag. "But if she had typhoid fever it wouldn't be her fault either, and I would still want her quarantined away from Roy and Riza."

"It's none of your business," Hawkeye-sensei muttered. "Just bind up his ribs and go home."

Doctor Bella whirled on him, her voice taut with anger. "Mordred, this has gone beyond moping around and shouting at Riza! This child is seriously hurt! She's unstable. You don't need to commit her permanently, but—"

"I can't commit her!" the man cried. Riza stirred in his lap, mewing softly. Hawkeye-sensei bit his lip and stroked her hair, and Roy exhaled in relief as she settled back against the adult. "I can't commit her," Hawkeye-sensei repeated softly.

The doctor lifted Roy's hands onto her shoulders, and then started wrapping the bandage around his chest. He gasped a little as she twisted it tightly. The doctor went to the sink and took a spoon from the drawer. She filled Riza's blue mug with water, then took a dark bottle from her bag. She poured a small pool of yellowish liquid onto the spoon, and held it to Roy's lips.

"Drink it, sweetheart: it'll help the pain," she said.

"You're giving him laudanum?" asked Hawkeye-sensei.

"Yes, I am, and I expect you to do the same," the doctor said shortly. "Five minims every four hours as long as he's in pain. Come on, Roy, honey. Open up."

He let the doctor give him the bitter-tasting drug, and then gratefully took the water.

"It isn't helping Lian's pain," Mordred mumbled.

"It can't help that kind of pain. She was using it as a sedative," said Doctor Bella. "Now, I'll talk to my friend in Central City, and we'll arrange to have her assessed. I understand that this is hard for you, Mordred, but—"

"I am not going to have her committed! I don't care what it takes, she's staying here."

"Here, honey, let me help you..." The doctor eased the shirt over Roy's head and gently drew his arms into the sleeves. "I'm sorry, Mordred, but as her doctor and your friend, I can't let you do that. For the safety of the children, she _has_ to be removed from this house."

"She's staying."

"Fine." Doctor Bella closed her case with a snap. "Then Riza and Roy are coming with me. If you want to endanger yourself and your wife, I can't stop you, but I'm not going to let them stay in this situation."

She moved to lift Riza from her father's arms, but Hawkeye-sensei gripped the little girl tightly. "The hell you will!" he snapped. "You're not taking my daughter from me: you have no right!"

"_You _have no right to keep her where she's in constant danger of being beaten half to death by a madwoman!" the doctor cried. Then she froze, her hand flying to her mouth and her eyes flooding with pain. "Mordred, I'm... I didn't mean it like that..."

The alchemist looked at her with hatred. "You can't make me commit my wife, and you can't take my daughter. If you don't have any suggestions that will help Lian and keep her _here_, where she belongs, then get out of my house."

Doctor Bella shook her head resolutely. "I'm not leaving the children. They can stay with me until you come to your senses."

"Take the boy if you must," Hawkeye-sensei said. "I can't stop you. But if you try to take Riza, I'll... I'll report you as a kidnapper. There's no law to protect you if you try to take her from me, and friend or not I won't hesitate to charge you."

The hurt on the doctor's face was so tangible that even Roy could tell she was in agony. "Mordred," she breathed, her voice oddly tremulous. "Don't do this. Lian needs help; trained, experienced, full-time help. You can't give her the care she needs, and I know that I can't. We can't keep her sedated forever: sooner or later she's going to lose control again, and this time she could kill one of the children!"

Suddenly the man's face crumpled and he hid his eyes in Riza's hair. "She said..." he croaked. "She said I killed him. She said it was my fault, that I built that damned treehouse badly because I wanted him to fall. Sh—she said..."

Doctor Bella moved forward and put her hand on his shoulder. "That isn't true," she soothed. "It was a terrible, stupid accident. It wasn't your fault any more than it was hers or mine or Davell's. She's only blaming you because she's ill. Think about it: the Lian you love would never say something like that. She's ill, desperately ill, and she needs help. Don't deny her that."

A shuddering sob welled up from the alchemist's throat, and he rocked against Riza. "Those places, they're terrible," he choked out. "How can I do that to her?"

"I'll make all the arrangements," the doctor said softly. "In the meantime, we'll keep her sedated and safe."

The alchemist nodded, shuddering. "Bella, how did it come to this?" he whispered brokenly.

Doctor Bella stroked his hair. "Everything will be all right, my brave heart," she murmured. "We'll take care of her."

Then she stepped back almost spastically, and moved towards Roy. "Here, sweetheart, why don't you go upstairs and lie down for a little while?"

Roy wasn't sure where she wanted him to lie down, but he let her lift him off of the table, and then shuffled towards the door, moving slowly so as not to reawaken the pain. The doctor smiled encouragingly at him, and he tried to smile back. Alone in the corridor, he looked up the stairs. Mrs. Hawkeye was up there, he knew. He wondered if the doctor and Hawkeye-sensei would take Riza upstairs to her bed. He didn't want to leave the little girl alone where the lady might hurt her again. He clenched his jaw and gripped the banister.

The first couple steps were easy, but then his side began to ache, and an ever greater effort was needed just to continue. He reached the step that went off like a gunshot as he shifted his weight onto it, but he couldn't go any farther. He clung to the wall, panting miserably and trying to muster the strength to continue.

Then suddenly there was a strong, comforting hand on his shoulder blade. He looked up to see Hawkeye-sensei standing 

behind him, Riza still asleep with her head on his shoulder. The alchemist looked exhausted and absolutely defeated.

"Come on," he said softly. "You can rest in Davell's bed."

He backed up one step, turned Roy gently around, and hooked his arm around his skinny thighs. With Riza on one shoulder and Roy on the other, the alchemist mounted the last few steps. He moved into Riza's room, and set Roy down, then eased his daughter onto her pillow. He stroked the side of her face, and Roy felt that he was intruding on a deeply private moment.

Hawkeye-sensei turned and helped Roy to the door, drawing it closed behind them. Then he opened the door to Davell's room.

_discidium_

He closed his eyes, bracing himself as the door swung in. He expected a scent, the stale and bitter scent of a tomb. Instead, the room smelled of clean laundry and the peppermint sachet that Lian kept in each of the closets. Mordred forced himself to look at his son's empty room.

It had not changed at all in the months since he had last crossed the threshold. The little pine bed with its blue dove-in-the-window quilt stood in the corner, a well-loved stuffed bear presiding over its foot. The gabled window that looked out over the back yard was as clean as any other in the house, and the toy chest beneath it had been dusted recently. Next to the closet stood a shelf of books that had seen little use even when the room was occupied. There was a wooden train set on the floor, and Davell's prized possession—his stereoscope with its box of glass slides—still sat on the little table in the corner.

It felt almost sacrilegious to violate this shrine to his dead child, but practicality and guilt won out. Mordred knew that he couldn't expect the boy to huddle on the hard, narrow sofa downstairs; not with a cracked rib. And he did feel guilty, horrifically, sickeningly guilty that Lian had hurt the child. That she had hurt him while he was present in the room, and that he had been unable to stop her quickly enough. He moved to the bed and pulled back the covers.

"Up you get," he said to Roy, who was clinging to the doorpost and looked very white indeed. He crossed the room shakily, and let Mordred help him onto the bed.

"Try to rest," the alchemist murmured. "You'll feel better once the medicine starts working.

The child nodded drowsily: the laudanum was already starting to work its magic. Mordred drew the bedclothes gently over him, and then moved to the window to lower the shade. Leaving the boy alone in the semidarkness, he braced himself before opening the last door in the narrow corridor.

Lian was still as he and Bella had left her, covered with the sheet, with her dark hair staining the pillows. Her eyes were closed, and she looked so beautiful. So peaceful.

How, Mordred wondered, could he do this to her? Bella was right. She was ill, and she needed help. He could not even deny that she was a danger to the children, but... but she was still his wife. He had a responsibility to her, to care for her when she was sick and to protect her from the world. Shipping her off to a madhouse, where she would suffer unknown privations and indignities, seemed a betrayal of their vows.

Bella had promised to take care of everything. She was a good doctor, a good friend, and a good woman. Mordred trusted her. She had always been able to see what he could not bear to, and she was never afraid to tell him the truth, even when it hurt. And this truth hurt more than any other. His beloved was mad. She was not in her right mind, and no matter how much he wanted to, he could not take care of her anymore.

It was a bitter truth, and had it not been for Bella's candour and poor little Roy Mustang's broken rib, Mordred might never have seen it.

He kicked off his shoes and removed his vest. It was not his wont to lie down in the afternoon, but the children were both in bed, and Lian was sleeping, and he had no desire to return to the ravaged study and try to pick up his work again. Mordred lifted the sheet and slid into bed next to his wife. He wrapped his arm around her waist—still supple even after bearing two children—and laid his cheek next to hers. Her breath lacked the sweet perfume it once had had: now it smelled of laudanum and grief. He didn't care. She was still his Lian, and he loved her.

He would always love her.


	27. Lonely Partings

**Chapter 26: Lonesome Partings**

All her life, Riza Hawkeye remembered the day that they took her mother away.

Papa woke her earlier than usual, and helped her dress. He brought her down to the kitchen, where she and Roy ate their bread and milk. Rather, she ate, and Roy picked at it. He wasn't eating much now, because he was taking medicine that made him feel sick.

Riza wondered if he had the same sickness that Momma did. She hoped not. Momma had frightened her terribly, when she had shouted at Papa and kicked her boy and hit Riza so hard that she fell. No one had ever struck Riza before, and she was scared that Momma would do it again.

Since that day, however, she had scarcely seen her mother. Papa said she was very ill, and he gave her her medicine many times a day now instead of just at night. Momma hardly stirred from bed, and when she was up, she didn't seem to know where she was or what she was doing. Two days ago, a man had come with Doctor Bella, and they had talked to Momma for a long, long time. Then Riza and Roy had been sent outside to play so that the visitor could talk to Papa. Since then, Doctor Bella had been back four times, and she had hardly seemed to notice Riza at all.

At least Roy still had time to spend with her. He hadn't been working on his letters since the day Momma had hit him, and so they had nothing to do but play. Roy was hurt, so he couldn't run around the yard or reach things on high shelves, but he was still very good company. Riza was glad that she had her boy: it would have been very sad and lonely otherwise.

"We can have a tea party," Riza said, scraping up the last spoonful of milk and slurping it back.

Roy nodded. "Outside, or upstairs?"

"Outside," Riza decided. "We—"

She stopped talking. There were voices in the hall. "Who's there?" she asked.

"I don't know," Roy said, but he had the scared look on his face—the one he always wore when there were unfamiliar sounds. He bent his head over his bowl and pretended to be very interested in his breakfast.

Inaction was not Riza's way. She climbed off of her chair and peered into the front corridor. Her father was holding the door open as Doctor Bella and three men in dark suits came into the house. Riza recognized the first man as the one who had come to visit two days ago. The other two were strangers, with sober faces and close-cropped hair. Riza watched as Papa led them towards the stairs. He halted when he saw her.

"Go back to the kitchen, _chibi-chan_, and sit with Roy," he said softly. He sounded very sad. Not waiting to see if she obeyed, he mounted the stairs.

He skipped the trick step, but the three men and the doctor did not know it was there. Four sharp cracks like the sound of a rifle cut through the silence of the house. Riza waited, watching the stairs to see if anyone would come down. Maybe they all had to use the bathroom.

There was a noise of scuffling feet somewhere upstairs, and then the stair barked its protest thrice as the adults came downstairs. Doctor Bella was in the lead, with her friend behind her. Then came one of the tall, sombre men. In his arms, wrapped in a quilt and looking half asleep, was Riza's mother.

"Momma?" she said, her voice sounding very small and weak in the quiet corridor. "Momma?"

Momma's head lolled away from the man. She spoke, her voice fuzzy and her words slurred. "Riza? What is it?"

"Ssh, Lian, be still," Papa said softly. His voice sounded strange, and Riza saw that he was crying.

The convoy had reached the bottom of the stairs now, and Doctor Bella turned to talk to her friend.

"Keep her well sedated, please, Fred," she implored quietly. "And... and treat her gently. She's harmless when she isn't agitated. The laudanum helps a lot."

The man nodded. "Don't worry, Mr. Hawkeye," he said to Papa. "I'll see she's well looked-after. It's not a typical case of melancholia: I promise she'll get the specialized care that she needs."

Papa looked away from Momma, and his eyes fell on Riza again. "_Chibi-chan_, I told you to sit with Roy," he said. Doctor Bella touched his arm and shook her head.

"Mordred, let her come and say goodbye. No telling when she'll see her again."

"Very well," Papa said heavily. "Come here, Riza, and say goodbye to your momma."

"Why?" Riza asked, her carmine eyes widening. Say goodbye? "Where is Momma going?"

Papa looked helplessly at the woman. Doctor Bella smiled sadly. "She's going to Central, Riza," she said. "To a special hospital where they will help her to get better if she can."

At those words, Papa made a soft keening sound deep in his throat and cast his eyes onto the umbrella stand by the door. Doctor Bella came and picked Riza up, then carried her to the man who held her mother.

"Give her a kiss, Riza," the doctor coaxed.

Riza leaned forward and pressed her lips to Momma's clammy cheek. "Goodbye, Momma," she said. She looked up at Doctor Bella. "Will she see Grandfather in Central?"

"Quite likely," the physician said, smiling a little. "Why don't you send an extra kiss just for him?"

"Okay," Riza said, planting another gentle kiss on her mother's cheek. "Momma?"

Momma's eyes opened, and her red irises searched for Riza's. "Baby..." she whispered.

"Goodbye," Riza said. "Have a safe journey?"

"Davell..." Momma said. "I want Davell..."

Doctor Bella's friend shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Hawkeye," he said.

"Frederick, don't!" Doctor Bella hissed, but the man went on.

"Davell is gone," he finished.

"No!" Momma cried. "No! Davell! I want Davell!"

She worked one hand free of the quilt, and reached towards the parlour door. The other sober-looking man bent her arm back into the cocoon of the blanket, but Momma was crying now. "I want Davell! I need him! Let me take him! My prayers... I need Davell!"

"Oh, Lian..." Doctor Bella said sadly. But Riza realized what her mother wanted.

"Davell's picture," she said anxiously. "Momma needs it. She can't go away without it. She prays with it, for Ishbala to take Davell to heaven."

Doctor Bella looked at Papa. "Mordred?" she said questioningly. Momma was sobbing now, struggling against the arms that held her.

"I'll get it," Papa said hoarsely. He vanished into the parlour, and returned a moment later with the framed photograph of Riza's brother.

As he set it in her hands, Momma let out a long, moaning sigh. She clutched the picture to her bosom, murmuring her son's name.

"Lian, say goodbye to Riza," Doctor Bella said.

"Davell..." Momma breathed. "My son, my only son..."

The doctor's hold on Riza seemed to tighten. Her friend cleared his throat.

"We had best be going," he said softly. "The train won't wait."

The men went outside, where the undertaker's buggy was waiting. It was a sedate black vehicle, and the only one in town that was enclosed. Riza saw the men set Momma on the seat. Then they climbed in with her, and closed the door. The undertaker's boy clicked the reigns, and the buggy pulled away. Doctor Bella closed the door, and set Riza down.

"Mordred," she exhaled. Her voice was raw with emotion, and she was watching Papa mournfully.

"Bella, what have I done?" Papa croaked. He looked at her with desperation and sorrow in his pale eyes.

"Oh, Mordred..." The doctor wrapped him in her arms and embraced him, smoothing his hair with her hand. "The right thing. You've done the right thing."

Disconcerted and frightened by the sight of her father in tears, Riza backed away to the far end of the hall. Roy was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching the scene soberly. He looked at the two adults, lost in their pain, and then at Riza. He put out his hand to touch her arm.

"Don't be afraid," he said softly, trying to comfort her.

Riza _was_ afraid, and she was bewildered. Her mother was gone, and her father was weeping, and Doctor Bella was too busy to notice her. She looked at her boy, and suddenly she felt angry.

"Don't touch me!" she said. "You made Momma mad! You made Momma sick! I don't want you—I hate you! Go away!"

Roy stepped back as though he had been bitten by a viper. His eyes were wide and filled with a fathomless hurt. Riza didn't care. She stomped her little foot, indignant tears coursing down her cheeks.

"I _hate_ you!" she repeated. "I want my momma!"

She ran up the stairs as fast as her sturdy little legs could carry her. Her window looked out over the road. She used all of the strength in her small hands to lift the latch and open the window. She leaned out over the sill. In the distance, her sharp eyes could see the black buggy as it bounced into town, carrying her mother away.

She watched until she could not see it for the buildings, and then climbed down off of the window seat. She kicked her toy xylophone so that it made a discordant noise of protest. Then she climbed up onto her bed, threw herself down on her pillow, and sobbed. She wanted her momma! She wanted her momma!

But her momma was gone.

_discidium_

Doctor Bella came into the kitchen, and smiled sadly at Roy. "She's fast asleep, love," she said. "I think Hawkeye-sensei is going to sleep, too."

"She hates me," Roy whispered.

"No, no, baby, she doesn't hate you!" The doctor knelt down and put her hand on his shoulder. "You listen to me. Riza loves you very much. She's just hurt now, and sad, because Mrs. Hawkeye had to go away. She's frightened, so she said things she didn't mean. Riza's just a little girl, honey. She doesn't always mean what she says."

Roy didn't believe her. Riza had said that she hated him. She had told him that it was his fault that her mother was sick. Roy knew that that was true, too. Mrs. Hawkeye had just finished kicking him when she had had her fit. He didn't know why, but it was his fault somehow. He wished he hadn't done it. With all of his heart, he wished that he hadn't made her sick. She didn't like him, and he was afraid of her, but Riza needed her mother.

"When she wakes up, she'll need you more than ever," Doctor Bella was saying. "I'm so glad that you're here, Roy. I truly am. Riza needs you so much."

There was a knock at the back door. With a puzzled frown, Doctor Bella went to answer it.

"Is Roy there?" a familiar voice said. "I know I'm not s'posta come in the house, but..."

"No, please come in," the physician said. "Roy, look who's here!"

It was Maes, grinning apologetically. "Long time, no see," he said. "Blame Gareth. He wouldn't let me go anywhere for three days after the fight, and then he made me catch up on my schoolwork. Then Eli heard rumours that old lady Hawk—" He looked at the doctor, coughed awkwardly, and corrected himself. "That _Mrs._ Hawkeye wasn't feeling well, so they figured I'd better stay clear. Is it true they're sending her away?"

Roy nodded. "She's gone," he said, and it was strangely relieving to say it. He knew that Riza loved her mother, but he was frightened of her. She was cruel and unpredictable, she had hurt him, and she had tried to hurt Riza. He was glad that she was gone, and he hoped, because he was wicked and selfish, that she would never come back.

"Oh." Maes shrugged sympathetically. "Well, maybe she'll get better? Say, listen, I can't stay long. I have to get back and help break camp. See, we're... uhm..." He hesitated, adjusting his spectacles with his first two fingers. "We're leaving town."

Roy felt his heart sink. "Leaving?"

Maes nodded. "Thing is, after blacking a few eyes and getting beaten to a jelly myself, I'm not too popular with the local parental element right now, and Eli's been, ah, rocking the boat again. So Dad decided we'd better pull up stakes and move on early this year." He tried to grin, but did not quite succeed. "I'm... I'm gonna miss you."

Roy didn't know what to say. Maes couldn't leave! It wasn't fair: he had finally made a friend, and now he was leaving?

Something of his desolation must have shown in his face, for Maes went on. "We'll be back," he pledged hastily. "We come back here every summer. And... and I'll write to you. It'll be tough for _you_ to write to _me_, o'course, but I promise I'll write you. We'll still be friends, won't we Roy? Even if I'm not here?"

The last words were tremulous with vulnerability, and Roy realized abruptly that Maes was just as upset as he was. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The bigger boy came forward and hugged him tightly.

"Okay, then," he said, his voice a little husky. "You... you be careful. Stay away from those lousy bullies, and... take care of yourself."

"You too," Roy breathed.

"Sure." Maes forced a smile, backing up towards the lean-to. "Oh! I almost forgot."

He reached into his pocket and brought out a heavy-looking leather pouch. He gave it to Roy. "Eli made 'em last night. There's three dozen, and I made him give you two shooters, 'cause I know you'll give one to Riza. So long?"

"So long," Roy repeated. Then before he could say anything, Maes was gone.

He stood there in the middle of the kitchen floor, and he felt as alone as he had ever felt in his troubled young life. Maes was gone, and Riza hated him, and there was no reason to stay here now. Plentiful food and a warm place to sleep didn't seem so important anymore, not when he was so terribly alone.

"What did he give you?" Doctor Bella asked softly. Roy jumped a little. He had forgotten that she was in the room.

He looked down at the pouch in his hands, and opened it clumsily. It was full of marbles. He held it out towards the doctor.

"They're lovely!" she said, smiling at him. "Three dozen, and the two shooters makes thirty-eight. Why, love, that's almost one marble for every week 'til he'll be back."

Roy's eyes moved back to the colourful glass orbs. "It is?" he asked wonderingly.

Doctor Bella nodded. "They come every spring, regular as clockwork," she said. "He'll be back."

"One for every week," Roy said softly, dipping his fingertips into the bag and feeling the weighted smoothness of the marbles. There weren't _that_ many, he thought. It wouldn't be _that_ long until Maes returned.

He tried to smile. Maybe he would stay. He could stand to wait a little while, anyway. After all, Riza needed him, and... his heart sank again. Maes might be coming back, but he was still gone, and Riza was angry. She hated Roy, and that hurt him more than his sore ribs ever had. He closed the pouch and pulled away from the doctor.

"I have to go and... and practice my letters," he said hastily. He hurried from the kitchen so that she wouldn't see him cry.

_discidium_

Ben was driving the smaller caravan, and it was with him that Maes chose to ride. The others had said nothing. The brothers Hughes knew their baby well, and they were aware of why he wanted to be close to his eldest sibling. Quiet, dour-eyed Benjamin wouldn't try to cheer him up or to laugh him out of his discontent. He wouldn't tease him or ply him with platitudes. He would listen if Maes chose to rant, or sit in brooding silence if the boy wanted to sulk.

Each of the brothers knew what the child was going through. Since long before he met and married their mother, Absalom Hughes had been riding this route, from New Optain in the north to the Aeruga border south of Resembool Valley, migrating with the seasons and with the demand for his services. He never stayed in one place more than a few weeks; two or three months if the weather was harsh or the business was brisk. It was the life he loved, and over the years his sons had come to love it too, but freedom was not without its perils.

One such hazard was this: the making of friends who had to be left behind when the call of the road was heard again. Every one of the boys--even silent Ben, in a time before introspection and fruitless speculation had robbed him of his merry tongue and social attributes--had made the mistake of befriending someone only to lose them.

For Gareth, it had been a lad in Yousewell at the tender age of five. They had played on the slag hills and laughed together for twenty merry days, until the time had come to hitch up the horses and move along. Eli's companion had been his first love (which surprised none of the brothers). They had been eleven, and had promised to be together forever. Returning to her village the next year, he had found her too sophisticated to take up with a "tinker's brat". Afterwards, he had never quite forged the same connection with any of his myriad lovers, though he claimed that he enjoyed them more. Tiath and Eli, who in the years before Maes' birth had been virtually inseparable, had taken up with numerous boys in various towns until the constant heartbreak had finally taught them to keep their energies within the family. As for Benjamin...

"I was thirteen," the grim man said, his voice low and gravelly from habitual disuse. Ben seldom had much to say, at least not when he was sober--which was most of the time.

"I don't want to hear it," Maes said miserably.

"I want to tell it," Ben countered flatly. "All the yapping you do, you can stand to listen once in a while."

Maes shrugged noncommittally. He was just a kid, but he wasn't stupid. He knew what Ben had given up for him even before he'd taken his first breath, and he knew he couldn't ever pay that debt. Not that Ben ever held it over him. Ben never talked about it at all. But Maes wasn't stupid.

"I was thirteen, and I fell in with an older kid," the adult went on. It was hard to imagine him as a gangling thirteen-year-old with bare feet and glasses too large for his face. Mam had been sixteen, and Dad nineteen when Ben had been born. Ben had been twenty-three when he had yanked Maes into the world. "He was smart. Funny. From a well-to-do family. Spent a whole summer making trouble, having fun. I thought finally, a friend who's not Gareth. We'll be best buddies forever."

Maes had never heard this story before. In spite of himself, he raised his head in interest. "What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing," Ben said. "When I came back, he was gone. His parents had set up an apprenticeship for him in another town."

"Did you ever see him again?"

Ben flicked the reigns against the backs of the slowly plodding horses. "Every year," he said flatly.

"But it isn't the same?" Maes ventured.

Ben shook his head, but said nothing. His face, as always, was an inscrutable mask. They rode in silence for several minutes, the sound of Tiath and Eli shouting insults at one another muffled by the rumble of the cart wheels. At last, Maes felt he had to speak.

"Roy ain't like that," he said stoutly. "We're gonna stay friends. I promised I'd write to him, just like Gareth said."

He waited for his older brother to say something encouraging, as any of the others would have. Ben did not. He only reached up to adjust his spectacles, and kept his eyes resolutely on the road.

_discidium_

The sound of cicadas singing outside her open window woke Riza from her slumber. She had fallen asleep on top of her covers, still clutching her pillow. Her mouth felt cottony and warm, but the rest of her body was cool. She sat up and looked around. Her room was dark, with the moonlight pouring across the floor. She frowned, for a moment at a loss as to why she had been sleeping with all of her clothes on. Then she remembered.

Momma was gone.

Riza slid off the bed and moved to the door. She peeked out into the corridor. It was empty, of course. Her parents' room, too was empty. Papa was probably in his study. She was careful to skip the bad step as she descended to the front hallway. There was light spilling from beneath Papa's door.

Riza was hurt and lonely, and she wanted her father to gather her into his warm lap and pet her hair and call her _chibi-chan_, and cuddle her close. She tried to open the door, but it was locked.

She whimpered softly, her lower lip quivering. Alone in the empty corridor, she was a forlorn little figure in her rumpled pinafore, shut away from her remaining parent. The strain of the last few days showed in her peaked face and the new sombreness in her large crimson eyes.

The wordless rejection of the locked door wounded her young heart, but it could not touch her tenacity. Riza wanted consolation, and she was going to get it. She moved into the parlour. Her boy would be sleeping there, on the sofa. He would comfort her. He would want to be with her.

But the sofa was empty. Riza felt a little pang of fear. She had said terrible, hateful things to him this morning when he had tried to cheer her up. What if he had decided to run away? She couldn't bear to be without her boy. She hadn't meant those things: she had just been upset. Oh, what if Roy had left her, too?

Then she remembered. He was sleeping in Davell's room now. It was a secret, and they mustn't tell Momma, but Roy had to sleep in Davell's room because he was hurt. Perhaps he hadn't run away after all: perhaps he was in Davell's bed!

She ran up the stairs, hardly hearing the sharp rapport of the bad step. The door to Davell's room stood ajar, and she tiptoed up to it, slipping into the room.

Roy was curled under Davell's quilt, his raven hair surreally dark across the white pillowcase. His eyes were closed, and his mouth relaxed into a half-smile. Riza crossed the room and touched his cheek, just to make sure he was really there. She bent to remove her little brown shoes and her stockings, and tried to take off her pinny. The ribbons were in a knot, so she left it and lifted the blanket.

Carefully, so as not to wake her boy, she climbed onto the bed and lay down next to him. Roy stirred a little, and murmured something in his sleep. Riza drew the blankets up over them both, and cuddled close to him. His breath tickled her cheek, and his body was warm and comforting next to hers. She curled in towards him, and let herself relax. She was safe now.


	28. Treacle Monsters

**Chapter 27: Treacle Monsters**

The rain beat against the window, giving the room a dreary, bitter aura that had nothing to do with the cold stove or the thin layer of dust on the countertops. At the table, Riza sat waiting patiently as Roy struggled to pour the last of the milk over a dish of dry bread. There was only half a cup left, because Hawkeye-sensei had forgotten to put out the bottles for the milkman. Again.

"I don't want bread and milk," Riza said petulantly, kicking the leg of the table. "I'm tired of bread and milk. I want soup with chicken an' carrots an' rice."

"I know," Roy said softly. "I don't know how to make soup." He carried the bowl carefully to the table, and set it down in front of the little girl. Then he climbed onto the chair that he had pushed up next to the cupboard, and got her blue mug. He filled it with water from the tap.

"I don't want water, I want milk!" Riza told him.

"There isn't any more milk; it's all on your bread," said Roy. He felt so helpless. He didn't know what to do. There was almost nothing to eat in the ice box, and what there was needed to be cooked. The stove was cold, there was no wood in the woodbox, and anyway he wouldn't know how to light it, much less prepare food on it. Davell's clothes needed washing, and Riza was wearing her last clean pinafore.

Riza took a spoonful of her meagre supper, and wrinkled her nose. "The bread's hard," she said.

"Let it soak for a minute," Roy told her. "Do you want treacle?"

"Yes, lots 'n lots of treacle," the little girl agreed. It was the first positive thing she had said today, and Roy hurried to fetch the little pot of sweetener. In his haste, he faltered as he dismounted the chair, and it slipped from his hands. There was a sound of the ceramic vessel shattering, and Roy watched in horror as a sticky black stain spread across the floor.

Riza's eyes were wide. "You dropped it!" she exclaimed. "Look what you did!"

Roy wanted to cry. He was tired and overwrought, and he had been trying so hard all day to take good care of Riza while Hawkeye-sensei was busy in his study. Now she was eating bread and milk for the third time today, she had nothing to drink but water, and there was treacle all over the kitchen floor.

He wanted so badly to fix everything. It had been two months since Mrs. Hawkeye went away, and without her the house was not the same. Hawkeye-sensei was absentminded, often forgetting to go into town to buy bread, or neglecting to light the kitchen stove, or overlooking entirely the fact that clothes needed to be washed or beds needed to be made. Then every few days, he would tell the children to play quietly, vanish into his study, and not emerge until long after dark. He didn't do it every day, but when he did it seemed like those were the days when everything went wrong. No matter how hard Roy tried, he just wasn't good enough to run the house properly.

He had to try, though. He was the older one, and he had to look after Riza. She wasn't herself anymore. She was quieter, much quieter. The bubbling spring of blissful banter had dried to a trickle. She didn't have the same zeal for her play that she once had had. She would sit quietly for hours, now, looking at her picture books or drawing on Davell's slate. When Hawkeye-sensei was in the mood to work on teaching Roy how to read and write, she would sit in the corner of the study, between the two bookshelves, and watch them with silent, sombre red eyes. And there were the nightmares, too... but Roy didn't want to think of that. Even more than he wanted to feed Riza properly and care for her decently, he wanted to make her happy and light-hearted again.

He couldn't do either, but at least he wouldn't cry in front of her, no matter how discouraging the day had been.

"I'll clean it up," he said. He went to the linen cupboard next to the pantry, and picked out a couple of rags.

"What about my bread and milk?" Riza asked. "I can't eat _that_ treacle: it's dirty!"

Roy wracked his brain. He knew there wasn't any more treacle, but there had to be _something_ sweet that Riza could use. "Honey?" he asked. "Would you like honey?"

Riza cocked her head to one side, considering the proposal. Ultimately, she appeared to find it acceptable. She nodded. "Okay."

Roy climbed up onto the counter again, took down the honey pot, and carefully, _carefully_ got down to the ground. He drizzled the viscous golden fluid over Riza's supper, taking care to give her just a little bit more than Hawkeye-sensei would have allowed.

"There," he said, almost proud of this small accomplishment. "Now eat it up, before it gets soggy."

Riza picked up her spoon, and Roy turned back to the black, sticky mess on the floor. He tried to work out the best way to clean it up. First, he decided, he had to pick up the bits of shattered pottery. Kneeling down, he dipped his finger and thumb into the treacle, and picked up the largest shard. Carefully, one by one, he plucked them out of the oozing sweetener, and piled them in his left hand.

"Ugh!" Riza cried out, so suddenly that she startled Roy. He jumped, and the pieces of the treacle pot fell from his hand. "It's too sweet," Riza told him, pushing her bowl away. "I can't eat it, it's yucky."

Roy realized his mistake. Honey was much sweeter than treacle: of course he had used too much. He really was a dumb boy. "I..." He looked down at his sticky hands. His left palm was cut, and thin, bright red blood was trickling over the dark streaks of treacle. Distraught, he wrapped one of the rags around his hand and got to his feet.

"I can't eat it," Riza repeated. "I want something else."

There wasn't anything else, Roy thought despairingly. Forgetting the fact that his hand was coated in treacle, he rubbed his mouth. Riza giggled a little.

"You got whiskers," she said. "Sticky treacle whiskers."

"That's right, I'm a sticky treacle monster," Roy told her. "I'll make you all black and gooey."

"Will not!" Riza argued, and she almost sounded happy.

"Oh, yes I will!" Roy warned. He reached out and brushed his index finger along her upper lip. Riza squealed in delight, actually smiling for the first time in days. She flicked out her tongue and licked off the smear of sweetener.

"You can't catch me, you treacle monster!" she giggled. She climbed off of her chair and ran around the table, laughing as Roy feinted in her direction. She bent down over the puddle of treacle, and smacked her hand against it with a soft _splat_. She trotted over to Roy, and planted her palm on his cheek. "Gotcha!"

Roy laughed a little, and touched the tip of her nose, leaving a dark blob of treacle. Riza squealed and tried to brush her hair out of her eyes, leaving a streak across her temple. She scooped up a fistful of treacle, and came after him. Roy danced out of her way, and tried to evade her as she came after him. Riza giggled and stood on the tips of her toes, depositing her ammunition in his hair. Roy laughed as the sticky substance settled towards his scalp and trickled onto his forehead. He stuck his hand into the puddle again, and brushed it against her neck.

Riza was laughing uncontrollably now. She squatted down and splashed in the treacle. Then she planted a handprint on the front of Davell's shirt. "You're the stickiest!" she tittered happily.

Roy nodded, giggling in spite of himself. "But you're sticky, too. We're both sticky, icky treacle monsters," he laughed. "We're the stickiest, ickiest—"

Hawkeye-sensei cleared his throat, and the two children turned, eyes wide and suddenly overrun with guilt. The alchemist regarded them gravely. "What is this?" he asked.

Roy looked at Riza, with treacle in her hair and on her face and all over her pinafore. He looked at the puddle on the floor, and the two sets of gummy black footprints—his bare ones with the long, bony toes, and the neat marks of Riza's shoes—that ran away from it, circling the table and the rest of the room. He looked at his own hands, and the sticky rag spotted with blood, and the handprints on the shirt. Then his eyes moved to the alchemist's acetic, frowning face, and he felt all of his courage ebb away. They were in so much trouble...

"We're treacle monsters, Papa," Riza mumbled, twisting her foot a little and watching her father with a touch of apprehension.

"It's my fault, sir," Roy said hastily, stepping forward to transpose his body between Riza and Hawkeye-sensei. "I..."

The alchemist let out a snort that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "Both of you upstairs," he said, pursing his lips as if they were trying to do something he didn't want them to. "Time for a bath."

_discidium_

Mordred wrapped Riza in a towel and set her on the floor. "Go and put on your nightdress, _chibi-chan_," he said, sending her out of the bathroom with a gentle pat on her rump. He crooked his finger at Roy, who was standing in the corridor. The boy came timidly towards him. Mordred herded him into the bathroom and closed the door.

"You two made quite a mess," he said, fighting his amusement.

"Yes, sir, I'm sorry, sir," he murmured.

"Well, get your clothes off, and hop in the tub. I'll help you wash your hair before I go to clean up the kitchen." Mordred stood back while the boy clumsily removed his shirt and pants. Now that Lian was not here to object, the alchemist had told him to wear Davell's outgrown garments every day. He knew that his wife wouldn't approve, but the child looked so ridiculous haunting the house clad only in cut-down men's shirts. At least when he wore Davell's clothes he looked like a proper child, not a forlorn little throw-away.

Naked now, Roy climbed carefully into the claw-footed tub and sat down in the water. Mordred dipped his hand in to test the temperature, then took a handful of the rose-petal soap that 

Lian made—that Lian _had _made every autumn. He worked it to a lather and started on the sticky black strands. He hadn't helped the boy wash since the first day he had come into the household. That, too, had been Lian's responsibility.

He pushed back that thought. He couldn't bear to think of Lian. He couldn't stand the knowledge that she was hundreds of miles away, locked up in a cold state institution in Central. His one consolation was that Bella had assured him, over and over, that the assistant head of the asylum was a good man, and would see to it that she was properly cared for.

"Lean back," he instructed, easing Roy's head into the water to rinse away the soap. When he was finished, he rubbed the boy's hair dry with a towel. "Finish washing, then put on your nightshirt," Mordred said. He got to his feet.

"S-sir?" Roy said as the alchemist put his hand on the door handle. Mordred turned to regard him questioningly. "What's my p-punishment, sir?"

Mordred grunted a little. It was true, the two children had made a terrible mess of themselves, their clothes, and the kitchen, but it was impossible for him to be angry. He hadn't heard Riza laughing so hard in weeks. In months. Since... since Lian went away.

"There'll be no treacle on your bread and milk tomorrow, nor on anyone else's," he said. "A little lesson in cause and effect."

He left the boy alone to ponder that, and then went down to the kitchen. He hesitated a moment before making up his mind, then knelt carefully amid the footprints, dipped his finger into the puddle of treacle, and drew a transmutation circle.

Mordred was just rising again, from a sweetener-free floor, when there came a knock at the door. He deposited the mended treacle pot in the sink, where he would rinse away its spoiled contents later, and moved into the corridor, turning up the gas as he went.

Riza came running down the stairs, setting off the sharp crack of the bad step as she came. "Momma?" she exclaimed as Mordred opened the door. Her face crumpled. "Doctor Bella," she amended, disappointment in her voice.

"Good evening, love," the physician said, smiling kindly. She had rain in her hair and a large basket over her arm. "I meant to drop by earlier, but... well, you know how it is in a busy practice. I hope you haven't eaten supper yet?"

"Uh, no..." Mordred had completely forgotten about supper. He had just assumed the children could find something for themselves: after all, if young Mustang had survived three years eating out of middens and ash buckets, he could surely find something edible in a well-stocked larder.

"Good," the doctor said, closing the door and moving through to the kitchen. "I brought fresh veal sausage, scalloped potatoes, and carrots. I know Riza loves carrots." She smiled at the little girl.

Riza's look of disillusionment turned into a timid smile, and she nodded. "I do," she said. She went to the stairs and shouted up into the twilight, "Roy! Roy the boy! Doctor Bella's here! She's got _real_ food!"

"He's probably still in the bath, _chibi-chan_," Mordred said. There was a bowl of liquefying bread floating in very strange-looking milk on the table. He took it to the sink and rinsed away its contents.

Roy appeared at the door, a pale, ghostly little figure in his oversized nightshirt. "Good evening, Doctor Bella," he said quietly.

The physician set down her basket and bent to give him a hug. "There's our special boy," she said. "Come and eat while it's still hot, and then we'll have your cake."

Roy looked confused. "Cake?" he asked.

"Yes, that's right," Bella said, lifting various covered dishes from her basket and starting to fill plates for the children. "Today is a special day, you know."

Roy didn't know, and Mordred felt a pang of remorse. He had forgotten it himself. Today was the twelfth of October, and it had completely slipped his mind.

"Well, maybe Riza can guess," the doctor said. "Riza? Do you know what kind of special day Roy would have, with a cake and presents?"

Riza shook her head. "We don't have birthdays here," she said in a sombre stage whisper.

The remorse turned to gut-wrenching guilt. They hadn't celebrated Riza's third birthday: Lian had still been mourning Davell, and it had seemed much, much too soon to celebrate anything.

"Don't be silly, _chibi-chan_," Mordred said hoarsely. "We're going to start having birthdays again. Roy's is today, and in February we'll celebrate yours."

"Really?" Riza asked.

"Really," Mordred promised.

"Roy is eight years old today," Doctor Bella said. "He's quite the grown-up little gentleman."

Riza giggled. "He's not, he's a boy," she said. "_My_ boy."

Roy didn't seem to know what to do. He looked from one adult to the other, then smiled at Riza. "Maybe we could share my birthday?" he asked. "So Riza can have one, too."

"We can't do that," Bella told him. "But we can all share your cake, and I brought a gift for Riza, too."

"For me?" Riza said, and when the doctor nodded, she laughed. Then she took a spoonful of carrots and chewed them contentedly. "This is a happy day," she announced. "Happy birthday, Roy."

As he watched the now seldom-seen smile on his daughter's face, Mordred reflected sadly how much he had missed the sight of it. He was a strict agnostic, as the times and his science demanded, but had he been a religious man he would have used this moment to offer a prayer of thanks for Isabella Greyson. And the treacle monsters.


	29. Night Terrors

**Chapter 28: Night Terrors**

Riza was sitting at the kitchen table, working on one of her wooden picture-puzzles while Roy tried to clean the breakfast dishes. It was too cold to play upstairs now, though the heat from the study chimney which ran through the wall between Riza's room and Davell's was sufficient (when combined with a hot brick for the feet) to keep the children warm at night. The kitchen stove was kept burning constantly, at least as long as Roy remembered to keep it fed and Hawkeye-sensei remembered to bring in wood, and it was in this room that Roy and Riza spent the bulk of their time.

Roy worked on his reading and writing three mornings each week, under the alchemist's absentminded supervision. Hawkeye-sensei spent a great deal of time working on his research. Roy wasn't exactly sure what the research entailed, but it consumed a great deal of time and massive quantities of papers, and no matter how long Hawkeye-sensei worked on it, he seemed dissatisfied with the result. He would work on the endless sketches while he listened to Roy struggling to sound out passages from the First Reader or from his beautiful primer, occasionally correcting him but more often than not reminding him to "look at the sound", which meant moving slowly, letter by letter, through a word until Roy finally recognized it.

Roy was still not very good at writing words, but his penmanship was excellent. He meticulously copied the alchemist's neat italic hand, paying more mind to the shapes than to the letters. On more than one occasion, Hawkeye-sensei had watched his slow, careful progress and remarked sharply that he was meant to be _writing_ the words, not _drawing_ them.

On afternoons when Hawkeye-sensei was in a good mood, they would work together on ciphering. It was in this direction that Roy had real talent. Numbers made perfect sense to him, where letters did not. He had mastered the rudiments of multiplication quickly—it was a simple matter of memorization and method—and was now working on long division and fractions. The alchemist was never extravagant with his praise, but he had admitted after several such sessions that Roy had "a fine head for figures".

Unfortunately, he was not very good at washing dishes, Roy reflected morosely as Riza's tin plate slipped from his fingers for the third time, landing in the sink with a splash and a muffled clatter.

"You're makin' the floor wet," Riza observed quietly, scarcely glancing up from her puzzle.

She was wearing a rumpled pinny over her unwashed dress, and her hair was tangled in its clumsy braid. Her father had no gift for styling hair, and there was only so much that Roy could manage, so this aspect of the little girl's care was sorely neglected. Her clothes and the ones that Roy wore were rather dirtier than Mrs. Hawkeye ever would have allowed, for since the snow had come the outdoor washtub was unusable. The alchemist had tried to do the laundry with tap water in the bathtub, but the soap had refused to lather, so the little household had to make do without clean clothing. Roy didn't mind, for Davell's garments were still a tremendous improvement on what he had been wearing last winter, but he knew that it sometimes bothered fastidious little Riza.

The back door opened, and Hawkeye-sensei came into the lean-to, stamping his booted feet and huffing against the cold. He pushed the door closed with his hip, and shook his head so that the snow fell from his hair in a white flurry. "Come here and help me," he ordered. Roy climbed down from the chair to relieve the alchemist of some of his burdens.

There was a brown paper parcel from the butcher's, and a bundle of sorry-looking carrots that had probably come all the way from South City. The week's bread was wrapped in a smudged napkin, and Roy carried it carefully to the table, not wanting to crush the loaves within. Hawkeye-sensei waited for him to come back for the tin of soda crackers and the packet of peppercorns, eased the sack of potatoes off of his shoulder and bent to take off his boots. He shook out his greatcoat, hung it on a peg, then picked up the broom and swept the snow towards the back door, where it could melt away at its leisure.

"It's cold enough to freeze a bridegroom's heart out there," the alchemist said, blowing on his hands and dragging a chair towards the stove. "Fill up the kettle, there's a good lad. I need some tea."

Roy hurried to obey, and the alchemist looked towards his daughter. "Don't I get a hug, _chibi-chan_?" he asked.

Riza tilted her head to one side. "I'm doing my puzzle," she said in a matter-of-fact way.

"Ah," Hawkeye-sensei breathed. He rubbed his cheeks, trying to restore feeling to them. "Wish I knew where Lian kept the winter things," he said, more to himself than to the children. "I could've used a muffler and gloves today."

He dug into the pocket of his vest, and brought out a handful of envelopes. Riza's interest was suddenly piqued.

"Did Momma write a letter?" she asked eagerly.

The alchemist shook his head sadly. "No, baby, but there's one from your grandfather. And a bill from the asy—from the hospital," he said almost despairingly, tearing one open. His eyes scanned it, and widened almost imperceptibly.

"Is it for a great deal of money, sir?" Roy asked softly. He knew that Hawkeye-sensei worried about money a lot.

"No, same as always, just earlier than I expected," the man said wearily. He looked at another two letters, giving them no more than a cursory glance before opening the stove and thrusting them into the flames. There was only one left, and he studied it for a moment before holding it out. "This one is for you."

Roy hesitated, wondering who could possibly have sent him a letter... then he remembered, and very nearly snatched it from the alchemist's fingers. "Maes!" he said eagerly, turning the envelope over to look at the untidy scrawl on the front. He recognized the first two words: _Roy Mustang_, but the rest needed proper reading. He tried to hand the letter back. "Will you read it to me?" he asked timidly.

"Read it yourself," the alchemist grunted. He had the letter from Riza's grandfather in his hands, and was studying it with the same intent gaze that he used when he worked on his research.

Roy backed away from the adult, a little hurt. He wanted to know what Maes had written, but he couldn't read it _himself_. He looked longingly at the letter in his hand.

_Roy Mustang_, it read: right there on the envelope. Inside, Maes had probably written all sorts of nice, cheerful, Maes-like things to brighten the dreary, bitterly cold winter day. The contents of the letter were as inaccessible to Roy as they would have been had the letter never reached its destination. He couldn't read them.

But the next line, the second word. He recognized it: it was _of_. He looked at the first word. _C-A-R-E_. _Care. Care of... _then the letter "M", all by itself, and then _Hawkeye_.

"_Care of M. Hawkeye_," Roy murmured. "_Hamner Village, East Province_."

"Hush!" the alchemist said sharply, looking up from his own letter. "Read quietly, or take it upstairs."

Roy didn't trust himself to try to read quietly, so he left the kitchen. The front corridor was cold, and as he ascended the stairs the air grew colder. He skipped the trick step, not wanting to further disturb Hawkeye-sensei, and moved into Davell's room. Here, it was so cool that he could see his breath coming from his nostrils in little grey puffs. He climbed into Davell's bed and huddled against the warm wall, where the chimney from the study passed through on its way to the roof. He opened the envelope, and pulled out a piece of paper. It was the heavy brown kind that butchers used to wrap meat: waxed on one side. The other was covered in writing.

Slowly, excruciatingly, he started to read, pausing to sound out words that he could not work out silently.

"_Dear Roy_," it began. He dared a tiny smile. _Dear _Roy, as if they were old friends, best friends. "_Sorry I haven't written you yet: we've been ahhh-whe-f-f-fuh-ll, awful busy. Dad made me finish the school term in this pokey little country school with only eight other sss-tuh-yoo-den-ts, students. The teacher was even younger than that bat Strueby, but she was nice. Sort of. She and Eli really hit it off. Yuck, yuck, yuck, YUCK._"

Roy laughed a little, trying to imagine the tall glassgrinder flirting with a young schoolteacher. It must have driven Maes crazy!

"_Then we went to..._" Roy stopped and frowned. He tried to follow the sounds of the letters. "_Yuh-ow-se-well_, _Y-owz-well. That's always a busy stop, because the miners always have lots of wages to spend. Gareth says they piddle it all away in the tavern, and if it wasn't for us their wives wouldn't see ANY benefit_._ As it is, most of them buy beads or hair ribbons or cookware to send home. I don't much like Y-owz-well; it's a rough town. Ben hates it."_

He had read almost half the page! Heartened by this success, Roy huddled closer to the warm wall and went on.

"_We're staying in a town called Paudar now. It's east of South City. Eli's gone there with Ira: he did his ah-pprrr.._." Roy gave up and skipped that word entirely. It was much, much too long to read. "..._at the glassworks in South City, and he uses the winter to make the things there that he can't do on our kiln: bottles and fancy work and stuff. It's raining all the time, and it drives Tiath crazy. Dad says he should just be glad it isn't snow. Have you got snow there? Gareth says you must have lots by now."_

Roy craned his neck to look at the window. It was half-covered with snow. He shivered. Every fibre of his being was grateful that he was safe inside this house, instead of out there, half-naked and frozen, trying desperately not to fall asleep in the bitter cold.

He turned back to the letter. "_I got to finish this, 'cause Tiath's headed into town, and he won't wait. I hope you are well, and that everything is good. Take care of yourself and watch out for those lousy kids. Your friend forever: Maes Hughes, Esquire."_

There was another line of writing underneath the scrawling signature. It started with the letter "P", followed by the letter "S". Roy didn't know what that meant, so he ignored it.

"_Gareth says I shouldn't sign my name 'Esquire', 'cause I'm not, but I saw it on a signpost by a big farm we passed, and I like it, so I'm using it. Hah!"_

That was it. Roy sighed a little, torn between delight that he had heard from his friend and loneliness because Maes was so far away—somewhere where there wasn't even snow. He looked at the letter. Well, at least he could read it whenever he wanted, and pretend that Maes was right here, talking to him.

He got off of the bed, and knelt next to it. He had his primer and his bag of marbles hidden underneath it, since he knew he wasn't to move anything on Davell's shelves. He folded the letter carefully, and put it inside the front cover of the primer, where it would be safe. Then he returned the book to its hiding place, and went back downstairs, looking forward to the warmth of the kitchen.

_discidium_

The wind that had been blowing all day was now whipping up into the beginnings of a blizzard. Mordred looked up from the meagre pile of bank notes on his desk to look at the rattling window. At least he had gone into town today, instead of leaving it for tomorrow as he had originally planned to. It was already a hard winter, and December had scarcely begun.

Morosely, he turned back to his accounting. He had forty-seven thousand _sens_ in the house, plus the three hundred that he owed Boris for last month's milk. It would be three weeks until the next payout was due from the investments that the local banker had made with the money from the sale of the family mill all those years ago. The bill from the asylum was demanding another forty thousand _sens_ for Lian's upkeep in the private wing.

Could the three of them survive three weeks on seven thousand _sens_? Mordred looked at his figuring. They had plenty of potatoes and rice. Bread was fifty _sens_ for the three loaves they ate in a week... that was a hundred and fifty for bread... and Bella had officially said that Roy, whose face was finally beginning to fill out though his body was still thin as a fencepost, was well enough to forgo his daily limes. That would cut their grocery costs substantially: at a hundred _sens_ a dozen, the exotic fruit added up quickly.

But they were almost out of firewood, too, and at this time of the year it was twelve hundred _sens_ a cord... which might last a fortnight if they were lucky. Then, of course, there was milk, and meat—though really they could do without the latter if they had to. Riza needed new shoes: she had quite outgrown her old pair, and they had none of Davell's that were small enough to fit her. Then there was the matter of winter clothes for the children. Of course, there was little need for them to venture abroad, but they couldn't stay inside all winter. Roy could wear Davell's old things, if Mordred could ever find them, but Riza needed a coat. Most of her stockings had holes in them now, and Mordred didn't know the first thing about mending. If he had access to a library, he could probably find an appropriate transmutation circle, but it was the dead of winter, and the last thing he could do was run off for a couple days in East City or Aquoya.

He needed another ream of paper for his work—the constant failure was hard not only on his patience but on his supplies—and his ink was running low, too. There were the property taxes at the end of the year... but he'd have his next stipend payment by then. But even without the taxes, add December's milk and eggs, and that was it. More than seven thousand.

But if he didn't pay, they would move Lian to the common wing. Her father wrote that there was influenza in Central now, but that so far Lian had escaped unscathed. She wasn't herself, his letter went on. At times she didn't even seem to recognize him. The doctors claimed she was improving, but Major Grumman couldn't see it. At least, he said, she had the benefit of the relative quiet and solitude of the private wing.

Mordred knew if he voiced his trouble to Bella, or even to Grumman, they would find a way to raise the money without overtaxing the housekeeping budget, but he was a proud man. Lian was his responsibility, and if he couldn't care for her physically or emotionally, at least he could support her financially. The forty thousand _sens _had to be sent. They would just have to be sparing with their meat, and Boris would have to tolerate another late payment for his services.

Mordred counted out the notes carefully, like a miser taking inventory of his wealth. He signed the return slip, and folded it and the money into an envelope. He was just about to seal it when he heard a shrill, piercing scream.

The pen fell to the desk with a clatter, and a moment later the bad step went off like a gunshot as the alchemist ran up the stairs. There was another scream, and then a long, terrified wail. Mordred flew through the half-open door to Riza's room and turned up the gas with a flick of his wrist. He almost tripped over Roy Mustang, who stood by the bed, bleary-eyed and frightened as he tried desperately to comfort the little girl.

Riza was sitting amid her blankets, rigid with terror. Her eyes were screwed tightly closed, and she was quivering as she screamed, sobbing with terror.

Mordred drew her into his lap, murmuring soft, consoling words that his child seemed incapable of hearing. Riza continued to weep, letting out sharp, panicked screams.

"Ssh, wake up, _chibi-chan_; it's just a dream. _Please_ wake up," the alchemist begged. His words could not pierce the veil of the night terror, and Riza continued to shake violently against him. He turned her head towards the light, hoping that the glare on her eyelids would help to wake her. She whimpered and tried to twist away. "Wake up, Riza. Wake up!" he repeated. "You have to wake up."

It was a common occurrence these days: the dreams that would not release their cruel hold on their young victim. Both Mordred and the boy were conditioned to come running at the first sound of distress, in the hopes that they might cut short the agony that these nameless horrors wrung from Riza. Sometimes they were successful. On other nights there was nothing to do but hold her until the fit passed and she calmed down enough to let herself return to the safety of the waking world.

Tonight was one of those night. Mordred rocked back and forth, keeping Riza's face towards the light and imploring her softly to wake up. At last, her rigid limbs relaxed, and the desperate, keening sobs shrivelled to miserable hiccoughs. Riza's eyelids fluttered, and then raised, revealing tear-filled eyes with crimson irises.

"There, _chibi-chan_, it was just a dream," Mordred soothed, cuddling her close.

"P-papa?" Riza breathed. She twined her fingers into the fabric of his vest, clutching him tightly as she buried her face against him.

"Ssh, Riza, ssh. You're awake now." He stroked her tangled hair. "It was just a dream."

"Th-there w-w-was a du-uh-uh-uh-ck," Riza sobbed, shuddering convulsively. "I want my momma!"

The words were a dagger to Mordred's heart. If Lian were here, of course she would know how to comfort the little girl. Lian had always been the better parent—the one who was _meant_ to be a parent, not an alchemist who had just happened to father a pair of children. If Lian were here, Riza probably wouldn't even have these dreams.

"I know, baby," Papa said. "I know. You need to get to sleep, now. If that horrible duck comes back, I'll char him to ashes for you, I promise."

"C-can I sleep in your bed?" Riza asked, raising her head to look up at him.

Her expression was heartbreaking, but Mordred's first duty was to the truth. He had too much work to do before he would be able to retire for the evening. He shook his head.

"I'm sorry, _chibi-chan_," he said. "It isn't my bedtime yet."

Riza's lower lip quivered, but she tried to put on a brave face. "Okay..." she said softly. "C-can you leave the light on?"

"I'll only turn it down a little," Mordred promised. He laid her down, covering her gently, then adjusted the gas so that the room was bathed in a dim orangish glow. He returned to the bed to stroke her hair. "Try to sleep," he said gently. Then he turned to the corner of the room, where Roy stood hugging himself against the chill of the window, his teeth chattering. "You, too, Roy. Back to bed," he said.

Riza whimpered, and Roy hurried towards her bedside. "I'll stay here 'til you get to sleep again," he told her. He climbed onto the bed and sat down against her feet. Riza smiled tearfully at him, and reached out for his hand.

"That's fine," Mordred said, unable to deny her this comfort. He backed towards the door. "Goodnight, _chibi-chan_."

Riza nodded, yawning enormously. She patted Roy's wrist and snuggled against her pillow. Mordred drew the door closed to keep out the draft, then stood silently in the corridor for a moment, before taking the stairs again, this time stepping over the bad step. He returned to his study with its blazing fire, and sat down to address the payment to the asylum in Central.

Somehow, he couldn't help being just a little jealous of Roy Mustang, who could so freely give his daughter the comfort that Mordred could not.


	30. A Matter of Necessity

**Chapter 29: A Matter of Necessity **

January brought with it the usual bouts of influenza, croup, pneumonia and dysentery, to say nothing of frostbite and first pregnancies. Bella Greyson, the only doctor within forty miles, had her work cut out for her, and she spent hours of each day bundled in her little cutter while Milly pulled her and her bag of remedies from farmstead to farmstead. She scarcely had time to sleep until the ides of the month rolled around, and the entire countryside was swallowed by a monstrous blizzard.

When at last the four days' storm let up, Bella Greyson bundled herself in her heavy fur-lined coat with the swansdown hood, donned her heavy leather mittens, and ventured out into the cold to visit the Hawkeye house for the first time in far too long.

She was worried about Mordred, immured in the empty house with two little children. Though she respected him greatly as a man and as a scientist, the truth was that he was not the most attentive of parents. In general, the rural men who populated the village and the surrounding countryside had a limited understanding of the art of running a household. Throughout their lives they relied upon their mothers, their wives, their daughters—and when bereft of these supports, their sisters, sisters-in-law, aunts or cousins. Mordred, at least, was a step ahead of these. He could cook a little, and he knew the first thing (and then some, Bella thought with amusement) about keeping the home fires burning. Still, however ill Lian had been, Bella was certain that the bulk of the daily maintenance of the home had been borne by her shoulders right up until her last days in the house.

Until the first snow had brought its rash of seasonal diseases, Bella had made a point of stopping by whenever her hectic schedule allowed it. She had brought over a hot meal once a week for a while, and she had made batches of soup that the alchemist then only needed to heat in order to provide a nourishing supper. Baking was always appreciated by the two children: however competent Mordred might be with a side of bacon or a bowl of potatoes, he was not ready to produce cookies or the other confections so prized by the little ones.

Such visits, too, had given her a chance to keep an eye on Roy and on Mordred — watching the former for signs that good nourishment was giving rise to good health, and the latter for hints of any emotional strain that might lead to trouble down the line.

When she had stopped by on the occasion of Roy's birthday, she had been amazed by the child's appearance. The change that the last few months had wrought was nothing short of miraculous. The hollows in his face had filled out into a smooth, healthy contour. He still had the pale complexion that conspired with his dark, almond-shaped eyes and ebony black hair to give the distinct impression that he had at least a little Xingese blood... but it was no longer the sickly pallor of malnourished anemia or the unhealthy yellowish tint of scorbutus. Though still underweight, he was certainly gaining, and he had grown at least two inches since the spring. He had been clean and properly dressed, save that like many boys his age he didn't like to wear shoes in the house. A casual observer would never have seen the bedraggled, feral child of seven months' past in this perfectly normal little boy.

Most remarkable of all had been the change in bearing and expression. His stormy grey eyes had held no terror as he looked at her, and his shoulders were no longer hunched into a defensive posture, nor his thin legs taut and ready for flight. He was still — and perhaps always would be — somewhat sombre of countenance unless he happened to smile, but he now had a measure of self-confidence that spoke of a child who knew his place in the world and was largely content with it.

Now, three months later — had it really been three months? — she made her way into the snowy streets, keeping to the runner ruts of Boris the milkman's sleigh as she picked a path to the other side of the village. The front path of the Hawkeye home had not yet been shovelled clean, but as Mordred had never been one to welcome visitors, Bella was hardly surprised. She waded through the pristine expanse and rapped on the door.

It was Roy Mustang who answered, and the doctor was both surprised and gratified when he greeted her with a small smile and a polite "Doctor Bella! Come in."

She closed the door behind herself, and stomped the snow off of her boots. Then she looked at the child.

He wasn't clean, and he didn't look especially healthy, either. His hair was overgrown and unkempt, falling into his eyes and well down his neck. His clothes, still hopelessly too large, were grubby: there were old grease stains on his shirt, and his trousers were dusty and discoloured. He wasn't wearing shoes, of course, but his big toe was poking through a hole in his left sock. He seemed to have lost weight since the last time she had seen him, and there were purple shadows rimming his eyes.

"Doctor?" Roy said quietly. "Do you need to see Hawkeye-sensei? He's working in his study."

"Yes, in a minute," she said. "I just wanted to make sure that everything is all right. That was quite a storm."

"A blizzard," the boy agreed, shivering a little. A brief, haunted look passed across his face, but then he tried to smile. "Riza wanted to go out in the snow, but I told her it's too cold."

"Oh, it's not that cold, if only she dresses properly," Bella said, still eyeing the boy's shabby and dishevelled state and wondering why on earth he looked so poorly kept. "After I'm finished talking to Hawkeye-sensei, then maybe we can see about getting you two outside for a little while."

Roy didn't look very enthused by this suggestion, but Bella had other concerns. She took off her mittens, and removed her hood, but then she realized how cold the corridor was. She did not remove her coat as she walked to the study door and pushed it open.

The room was sour-smelling and stuffy, as if the door had been closed for days. Mordred was sitting at his desk, bent over another one of his incomprehensible drawings. There were books piled around his chair, and cast-off sketches littered the floor. He hadn't shaved in days, and a thin blonde fuzz covered his jaw. He was wearing his smoking jacket over his customary shirt sleeves. As Bella drew nearer, she realized that at least some of the close, musky odour was coming from him.

"Mordred?" she said softly. Behind her, Roy came into the room, closing the door quickly.

The alchemist didn't look up from the arc he was drafting. "Bella," he replied coolly. "That was quite the storm."

Motion in the periphery of her sight made the doctor turn her head. Roy had crossed to the fireplace, in which the remains of three logs were smouldering in ashy embers. On the hearth rug, Riza was sitting. She was wrapped in a quilt, watching the doctor with wide, mournful red eyes. Her pretty little face had a pinched look to it that frightened Bella, and her usually sleek golden hair was rumpled and matted. Someone had tried to brush it and twist it into twin plaits, but the clumsiness of the hairdresser was evident.

Roy sat down next to her, crossing his legs and drawing an old grey blanket over his lap. He put one arm protectively around the little girl, and bowed his head. A slate and pencil sat in front of the two children: evidently, the boy had been working on his lessons.

"Yes, it was," she said to the man. "Mordred, what on _earth_ is going on here?"

"I'm working," he said.

"I can see that, but from the look of things you haven't been doing much else." She moved to the hearth, but there was no wood in the fuel basket. Bella knelt by the children instead. Riza looked at her, but did not smile. "Sweetheart? Are you okay?"

Riza shook her head. "I'm cold," she said. "I'm cold and it's boring."

Roy glanced warily at the alchemist. Bella got the distinct impression that this was not the first time Riza had voiced these complaints.

"Of course you're cold: it's freezing in here," Bella said. She unbuttoned her coat and gathered Riza, quilt and all, into her lap. The little girl snuggled against her, and Bella wrapped the coat around her. "Roy, is there any wood in the house at all?"

"In the kitchen," Roy said. "But—"

"Run and bring some," she told him. "Embers are good for cooking, but they can't properly heat a room."

Roy nodded and hurried into the corridor.

"Mordred, put down that damned pen and get over here," the doctor said sternly. She was starting to notice a faint scent of dirty clothing and unwashed skin radiating from Riza as well.

"Just a minute," the man mumbled.

"No, Mordred, _now_!" she ordered.

He turned in his heavy chair, glaring at her. "What?" he said in annoyance.

"Why aren't you keeping the house warm?" the doctor demanded. "I would have thought that _you_, of all people, would have a basic understanding of fire!"

He didn't appreciate the barb: that was evident. She was daring to imply that he use his hallowed alchemy for some small, mundane, banal purpose – like keeping his only daughter warm. Bella knew that he was a proud man with an uncommonly high opinion of himself, but sometimes he took his hubris to absurd lengths.

"And why on earth hasn't anyone bathed?" she went on. "You smell like a hog barn, and the children are both as dirty as miners. And Riza's hair – she looks like the rag-picker's child!"

"That's the boy's doing, not mine," Mordred said testily.

"And why is an eight-year-old child responsible for seeing to Riza's hair?" Bella exclaimed. She closed her eyes and drew in a calming breath. It was not going to help matters for her to fly off the handle. Obviously Mordred was struggling, and if she was ever going to find out why, she needed to be diplomatic. Anyway, shouting would only upset the little ones. "Mordred, if there's something wrong, you can tell me."

"There's nothing wrong," the man groused. "Apart from the damned weather."

"The _weather_ is the reason you're sitting here in an unheated house, wearing dirty clothes?" Bella said sceptically. She cared a great deal for Mordred, and always would, but sometimes he was the most infuriating creature she knew.

"The washtub is outside," the alchemist said sourly. "If you expect me to spend hours on my knees in the snow—"

"Why on earth can't you do the laundry in the house?" she demanded. "You might not mind wearing clothes with a life of their own, but I daresay Riza would like a clean dress, wouldn't you, baby?"

"I daresay," Riza agreed crossly. "An' my pinny's got spots on it."

"Town water's too hard for washing: you ought to know that," Mordred muttered.

"Then bring in a pan of snow and melt it!" Bella exclaimed, almost laughing. "Every woman in the village has figured that much out. For a brilliant scientist, you're not much of a problem-solver, are you?"

She was wrong to laugh: she realized it almost at once. Mordred's grimace of irritation morphed into a furrowed frown of anger. "I won't have you waltzing in here and criticising the way I run my household," he said.

Bella pursed her lips. "'Run' is an overgenerous term for it," she said pertly. "Why hasn't anyone washed themselves, either? Is town water too hard for bathing, too?"

"What's the point of cleaning yourself if you're just going to put on dirty clothes again?" the man argued. "Besides, it's too cold to wander the house with wet hair."

"It wouldn't be if you'd keep the fires going," countered Bella as Roy came into the room with an armful of fuel. She smiled at him. "Good boy. Put one of them on top of the fire, standing up like a tent pole."

The boy looked nervous at the prospect of reaching into the fireplace, but he obeyed, withdrawing his arm as quickly as he could. Bella waited for a moment, but there was not enough heat left in the dying logs to ignite the new one.

"Mordred, come over here and restart the fire," she said, adjusting her hold on Riza.

The alchemist reached across his desk for his flint – the one that bore his secret array in its base. Instead of getting up, he extended his arm. Bella frowned disapprovingly. "Don't you dare," she said. "Not in the house."

He flicked his thumb against the steel wheel, and there was a spark. A bolt of flame arced through the air and struck the log with a crack and a whiff of ozone. Roy, who had been standing near the fire, cried out in fright and fled behind Bella, a terrible, eerie terror in his dark eyes. Bella held Riza close and tried to calm her own nerves. She _hated_ it when Mordred did that.

The alchemist chuckled. "Don't trust me, Isabella?" he asked.

"You're an infant," she said coldly. "You'd sooner startle us than cross the room like a normal human being. Go and light the kitchen stove: I assume you've neglected it as well."

"We don't need the kitchen fire: I'll make their dinner in here," the alchemist said.

"Oh, will you?" Bella challenged. "And what sort of dinner can you cook on an open hearth?"

"_Porridge_," Riza said miserably. "An' there isn't any milk."

"Don't look at me that way, woman," Mordred growled. "You may not have noticed, but there's been a blizzard. Supplies are short."

Bella wasn't impressed. "Boris has been on his rounds already today," she argued.

"Milk doesn't come every day anymore," Riza said. "Only Tuesdays and Fridays."

"Why not?" Bella asked, frowning at Mordred. "Are you short of money?"

"Of course not," the alchemist growled. "I just can't be bothered to put the damned bottles out every morning. Anyway, Boris is just as happy to make the run out here twice a week instead of every day."

She wondered if that was the truth... but her position as a spinster friend precluded her from pressing the matter further. Her position as a doctor, however, gave her certain rights in other areas, hygiene being one of them. "Go and light the stove," she said sternly. "And the heater in the bathroom. I'll wash the children's clothes, you can see that they're bathed, and I'm not leaving 'til I'm satisfied that they're clean. Roy, you be a good boy and gather anything that wants mending. I can take it with me. Mordred," she added, frowning at the alchemist; "_go and light the stove_."

For a moment he looked like he wanted to argue, but then he got to his feet and shuffled out of the room. Bella stroked the crown of Riza's head, her fingertips snagging a little on the snarled golden hair.

"There, sweetheart, we'll get you a clean dress," she promised.

"An' a clean pinny?" Riza asked.

Bella smiled sadly.

_discidium_

Bundled in her quilt, Riza sat on a chair drawn close to the kitchen stove, which was almost red with the heat radiating from within. Mordred glared at the cast-iron range, begrudging it the wood it was devouring. Damn Bella for an interfering _woman_! They were getting along fine, just fine, and they didn't need her in here preaching about laundry and cleanliness. It was winter, damn it! There was no one to see them, or care if they smelled a little or wore dirty clothing.

A little dress, a pinafore, and the clothes that Roy Mustang wore were draped over the backs of two of the kitchen chairs, drying in the heat of the stove. The doctor had the rest of Riza's things soaking in the big stew pot, which sat on the stove and bubbled with annoying cheerfulness.

Roy also sat near the stove. Like Riza, he was wrapped in a blanket, and like Riza, he was naked under it. Mordred had been half afraid that Bella had expected _him_ to strip down, too, but she seemed willing to let him retain a little dignity. The exact words she had used were "If you _want_ to reek like a midden, I can't stop you. Now that you know the mystical secret of winter laundry, you can wash your own clothes!"

The physician had the family's well-worn wooden comb in one hand, and the shears in the other. There was a square of newsprint on the table, and as she worked, she deposited dark locks of damp hair onto it. She was giving Roy a haircut – yet another thing, apparently, that Lian had always wordlessly taken care of. While she worked, she scolded.

"From now on I expect you to bathe the children at least once a week," she said. Mordred had known her for years, but he had never seen quite this side of her. She was angry and irate, and uncommonly shrew-like. "Really, it ought to be every day. And wash their clothes! What you do with your own body is your concern, but at least you owe _them _a little dignity. Honestly, Mordred, this isn't a conversation I ever expected to have with you!"

"I told you, the water—"

"And you can make ice, but not soft water?" she bit back. "Stop making excuses. You were too lazy to do it: you'd rather spend time on your research. Well, you're going to have to rethink your priorities. You have a house to run now, and you can't go on as if Lian is here to take care of things. You need to start thinking of Roy and Riza as your responsibility instead of incidental visitors in your life. They're just children, and they need looking after." She set down the scissors and brushed the back of Roy's neck with the towel. "There, love. All done. Feels better, doesn't it?"

The boy nodded, and for the first time in weeks his fringe didn't fall forward into his eyes. Mordred had to admit that he looked more comfortable, and less like an unkempt runaway.

"Now, about Riza," Bella began.

"Yes, I know, she's a little girl and I can't expect her to put up with dirty pinafores and holey stockings," Mordred grumbled. "I'm to pander to her like she's a princess, and—"

"I'm going to cut her hair," the doctor said shortly.

Mordred's jaw dropped. "You can't," he protested. "You have no right—"

"Roy can't be expected to keep it neat and tidy for her, and you can't or won't," the doctor said. "I certainly haven't the time to come by here every morning to brush and braid it for her: it'll have to come off."

Mordred looked at his child's long golden tresses, now sleek and shimmering in their dampness. She couldn't cut Riza's hair: she was a little girl! It simply wasn't done! "But she's a girl!" Mordred protested.

"A girl without a mother," Bella said cruelly. Then her face softened a little. "Be reasonable, Mordred. The poor little thing shouldn't have to suffer with tangles and clumsy hairdressers. Cut it off. She'll be more comfortable, it'll be easier to take care of, and she won't look like she's wearing a rat's nest on her head."

"But..."

"You're gonna cut my hair off?" Riza said. "Will I be bald?"

"No," the doctor said. "It'll just be short, like Roy's."

"Short hair is nicer," Roy agreed. Remembering the matted mop that he had removed on the boy's first day in the household, Mordred reflected that the child spoke with the authority of experience.

"Like Roy's..." Riza mused, clearly weighing the matter. "An' I won't have to brush it?"

"You'll still have to brush it," said Bella; "but you can do it yourself, and you won't have tangles anymore."

Riza's expression brightened markedly at this prospect. "No tangles?"

"No," Bella said, and before Mordred could protest she took the shears and cut away a long tendril of golden hair. "Hold still now, Riza love. It'll just take a moment."

She made quick work of it. A few quick clips, a couple swipes with the comb, and the beautiful tresses that Riza had worn since babyhood – on which Lian had doted – were gone. In their place was a short, boyish bob that framed the child's face in smooth strands. Bella wiped Riza's neck, and stood back to survey her handiwork.

"Lovely," she said, smiling. "You look just beautiful, Riza. And if you want long hair again when you're older and can take care of it all by yourself, you can always grow it out again."

Riza turned to Roy. The short hair moved with her, brushing against her cheekbones. "Do I look pretty?" she asked.

"Very pretty," the boy said, nodding emphatically. He was probably relieved that he would no longer have to fight with her over the question of brushing her hair, Mordred thought sourly.

"It's a matter of necessity, Mordred," Bella said firmly. "She'll be much more comfortable now."

Mordred looked at the little towheaded stranger sitting by his stove. "She doesn't even look like my child anymore," he complained. Then he strode from the room, leaving Bella alone to deal with the children.


	31. Postage Paid

**Chapter 30: Postage Paid**

Roy stood on the edge of the town square, rigid with anxiety for the first time in months. In that now distant world of cold and famine and bitter loneliness that still haunted him, such places had been both the quintessence of opportunity and the epitome of danger. Shops offered shelter from the elements, dustbins ripe for scavenging, and sometimes when desperation made him bold enough, even foodstuffs to steal, but shopkeepers were a touch and suspicious breed. More than once Roy had felt the sting of a broom handle across his back, or had his ears soundly boxed by an irate merchant. Their customers, too, were an unpredictable lot. They might give you a few _sens_ or a piece of fruit to eat, but they might just as easily kick you and call you a beggar's brat and threaten to call the corporal.

Today, he reminded himself – he _had _to remind himself in order to keep the fear at bay – that he was not a barefoot runaway branded as an outsider by his rags. He had managed to force his feet into Davell's shoes, which pinched terribly but at least offered some protection from the melting snow. Davell's clothes were fairly clean, for Hawkeye-sensei now washed them almost every week, and though they were growing shabby from perpetual use they were still whole. Roy secretly wished that they were warmer, for he had no coat, but he was not about to complain to the alchemist.

Completing his disguise was the shopping basket over his arm. He also had one hundred _sens_ in his pocket. It was more money than he had ever before seen at one time, much less held. In his hand he carried a list with strict instructions on how the money was to be spent.

First on Hawkeye-sensei's list was the bakery. It was easy to spot, for it had the stoutest chimney in town. Roy hesitated a moment like any other boy, to ogle at the picture window with its delectable display of cakes and cookies and sweet rolls frosted with powdered sugar. After admiring these mouth-watering confections, he pushed the door open and entered the shop.

The fragrance of fresh bread flooded his nostrils, and his stomach snarled. There hadn't been much to eat for breakfast – which was why the alchemist had sent him out to "do the shopping" in the first place – and when Hawkeye-sensei had left the room, Roy had poured most of his bread and milk into Riza's bowl. He knew all too well that winter was a hungry time, but the little girl didn't seem to understand.

There were two women by the counter, chatting with the portly baker. As Roy entered they turned to stare, then retreated to the far corner of the shop to whisper behind their hands. Roy swallowed the saliva that was flooding his mouth, and approached the counter.

"What'll it be?" the baker asked.

Roy looked down at the scrap of paper. "Two of the th-three-day-old loaves, please, sir," he said, trying to sound confident and not quite succeeding.

The baker grunted. "Fourteen _sens_," he said.

Roy's heart skipped a beat. That wasn't right. "It's s'posed to be twelve," he said, consulting the list again.

"Grist rate went up," the man told him. "Tell that tight-fisted alchemist he should take it or leave it."

Roy weighed his options frantically. It was more money than Hawkeye-sensei had expected him to send... but he had also received strict instructions not to return to the house unless he had everything on the list. "I'll take it," he said softly.

He handed over the hundred-_sens_ note, and took the two hardening loaves and a handful of coin.

The next stop was the grocer, where the man behind the counter measured out half a pound of lentils, half a pound of barley, two pounds of dried peas, and four ounces of salt. Twenty-three _sens_ poorer, Roy made his way to the butcher shop.

In contrast to the bakery, the smells here were almost nauseating to an empty stomach: hickory smoke, cumin and peppercorn and the faint, metallic memory of blood. There was a young boy of perhaps sixteen or seventeen at the counter, haggling with the butcher, so Roy was obliged to wait. He studied the sausages and the cured hams hanging from the rafters, and then the bright cuts of beef and pork under the glass. He wished he could bring some of it home for Riza. These days they only had meat when Doctor Bella brought supper, and Roy privately thought that want of this staple was one of the reasons that the little girl was always hungry.

When it was his turn to be served, however, he kept strictly to his instructions.

"Ten _sens _worth of soup bones, please," he said.

The butcher was a small, wiry man with an enormous moustache. He regarded Roy – coatless, bareheaded, rail-thin and a little threadbare – with a suspicious frown. "Let me see the money," he said.

Roy held out his handful of coins. The man reached into the glass case and pulled out a curved piece of cattle bone, shreds of meat and gristle still clinging to it. He wrapped it deftly in brown paper, and tied it with twine. Then he took a ten-_sens_ piece and gave it to Roy.

As he turned to leave, the butcher said, "Hang on." He came out from behind the counter and thrust something into Roy's hand. "I can't sell it anyway," he said gruffly. "You tell your mama she needs to feed you better: you're too skinny. Now get out of my shop."

Roy hurried to obey before looking to see what the man had given him. It was the last quarter-inch of a stick of salami, mostly casing but with a little of the savoury meet in the folds of the knot. Roy smiled, putting it carefully into the now heavy basket. It would be a nice present for Riza.

There were only two stops left, and the first was the dry goods store. Roy had to read the shingles to find it, for he wasn't sure what to look for in the window. The store smelled of camphor and tobacco, and it was crowded full of wares. There were spades and rakes in a barrel by the door, and brooms in another further into the room. There were shelves of heavy practical china, and boxes of gloves and handkerchiefs. There were stacks of shoe polish and hair pomade, dishes of fancy moulded soaps, and a tray of sweet-smelling pomander balls. One corner was dedicated to periodicals, almanacs, and a few dusty-looking books. There were wooden toys and a hobby horse nowhere as lovely as Riza's, a little bin of rubber balls, a stack of slates and a whole cup full of slate pencils. There was a row of expensive machine-made shoes, and a shelf of wooden heads bearing all kinds of hats: practical straws, dignified felts for men, and a profligate bonnet heavy with feathers and silk flowers.

At the far end of the room, the wall was lined with shelf after shelf bearing bolts of cloth, in every pattern, shade and weight imaginable. There were heavy, sombre dark wools for coats, plain practical canvas in earth tones for work trousers, and airy cottons in pale pastels with delicate sprigs of flowers dancing across them. Before this wall stood a long counter, and a matronly lady sat behind it, perched on a stool that let her survey her domain while she basted a collar onto a man's shirt. Roy approached her.

"Mrs. Hampton?" he ventured.

"That's right, love," she said cheerfully. "How can I help you today?"

Roy studied his instructions carefully. "A pot of red ink," he read. "And paper." He looked up helplessly. "Hawkeye-sensei said that I should tell you I have fifty _sens_ to spend."

"Ah," the lady said knowingly. "Sensei sent you. Well, I'll fetch it. Fifty, you said?" She vanished through a doorway in the wall of fabric.

Left alone, Roy looked at the counter. There was a rack of spools bearing thread of every colour, cards of buttons and papers of pins. There were boxes of scissors... and two glass jars of brightly coloured sugar candy. Roy could not help staring. He had had a piece of sugar candy once, on the day that the military had brought him to the state orphanage in East City. He didn't remember much about it except that it had been sweet and nice and oddly comforting in his strange new surroundings...

The lady came back, a rolled stack of heavy cream-coloured paper in her hand. She set a little pot of ink on the counter. "That's twelve _sens_, and thirty-eight _sens_ worth of paper. Fifty in all."

Roy held out the money, and she took all but three little coppers. She put the coins in her cash box, then helped him settle the bundle of paper in the crook of his arm.

"Sensei's lucky to have a big boy like you to run his errands," she said sweetly, helping him with the door.

"Yes, ma'am," Roy said politely, chancing a smile.

The last stop was the post office. It was a small gabled building near the train station. Inside, a young, very pregnant woman was writing in a ledger. At the sight of her, Roy balked. It was Miss Strueby!

Then she raised her head, and he realized that it wasn't his teacher, but some other woman who bore an unearthly resemblance to her. The face, however, was too thin, and the eyes too large. Then she stretched her pale lips in an attempt to smile.

"Sending out or picking up?" she asked breathlessly, setting down her pencil and holding her gravid belly as she straightened her back. The dress she wore was a faded gingham sack, so unlike the schoolteacher's plain but stylish calico frocks. Still, she looked so much like his nemesis that Roy could not quite muster the courage to speak. "Do you want to mail a letter, or pick up something?" she repeated, almost gently.

"Pick up," Roy blurted out.

"For what name?" the lady queried.

"Hawkeye. And Mustang?" he added hopefully. Perhaps Maes had sent another letter. He had received two more since the first, and he had studied each so often that he knew every word by heart: even "apprenticeship" and "philanderer". It had been more than a month since the last one had come.

"Oh. You have a couple of things," said the woman. She turned to look at the wall of cubby holes behind her.

A door at the other end of the room opened, and a gaunt man came out, shouting over his shoulder as he went. "—or I'll sell you to the Xingese, you miserable rake! See if I don't!"

The girl flinched, her hands flying protectively over her belly as the man slammed the door over the _click-click-clack_ of the telegraph machine in the back room. The man looked at Roy, then scowled at the lady.

"He's worse than useless, that bug-eyed lover of yours," he snapped. "What are you standing there for, you worthless slut?"

"I-I'm getting the mail, F-father," the girl stammered, still shielding her burgeoning abdomen. "For... for..." She looked desperately at Roy.

"Hawkeye," he said again, a little breathless. The man was obviously furious, and the woman was afraid of him.

"Hawkeye?" The postmaster's eyes narrowed as he frowned at Roy. "You're that boy staying with the crackpot alchemist. The beggar's brat our Jane had to turn out of the school."

"Roy Mustang, sir," the child whispered.

The man took a swing at the lady, who shied away from the blow. "So get his mail, stupid whore!" he commanded.

The woman took several letters from one of the cubbies, and the man fingered through them. "Oh-ho. Military Headquarters in Central," he said with just a hint of sarcasm, slapping one of them down on the counter. "That one's postage paid. The others..." He counted them. "Four _sens_."

Roy looked at the remaining coins. "I only have three," he said softly.

He was afraid that the abusive postmaster might shout at him or hit him, but the man only shrugged. "Then you can only take three," he said. He fanned them out on the counter. "Take your pick."

Roy looked at them. Two bore the seal of the hospital in Central, the one where Mrs. Hawkeye was staying. Those were probably very important, and he couldn't leave them. He took them and set them on top of the paid letter. The next one made his heart leap to his throat. He recognized the untidy scrawl even before he discerned his own name on the address. Maes! He had written again.

He picked it up, almost rapturous with delight. Then he remembered that he had to look at the other letter, and chose between them. The other one was addressed in a sharp, clinical hand. He picked out the name _Hawkeye _at once, but it wasn't addressed to "M." or "Mordred" or "Mr.". It was addressed to Riza.

Who would write Riza a letter, he wondered, studying the other envelope. It wasn't her grandfather's handwriting, but who else would send Riza something in the mail?

"Which one do you want?" the postmaster asked impatiently. He was flexing the fingers of his right hand and he kept shooting looks of annoyance at the girl.

Roy knew which one he wanted: he wanted Maes's letter. The correspondence from his friend was just about all that made his days bearable. But who, _who_ would send Riza a letter?

Then he realized. Mrs. Hawkeye, of course. Every time the mail came, Riza asked if her mother had written a letter. Every time the answer was the same. Now there was something addressed to the little girl. Riza wanted a letter from her mother every bit as much as Roy wanted one from Maes. But Roy had three and Riza had none.

Resolutely, he added her letter to the other three. "That one, please," he said. The postmaster pocketed the three _sens_, and then plucked Maes's letter from Roy's fingers. "Wait... can't I look at it?" Roy asked longingly.

"No," said the man sternly. "Until you pay the postage, this letter is mine." He put it back in the hole in the wall. "Now move along. You're taking up space that I require for other purposes."

The lady seemed to sense Roy's disappointment. She stepped forward. "But Father, it's only one—"

"You shut up!" he said. "And if I find you're giving out mail without postage, I'll take a buggy whip to you! Now get back to work!" He glared at Roy. "Get out!" he snapped.

Roy retreated, only just remembering to take the four letters. Outside he lingered, just for a moment, wishing with all his heart that he could have the letter. Then he bowed his head and adjusted his hold on the roll of paper, and started hobbling back towards the Hawkeye house.

_discidium_

The letter from Grumman and the report from Bella Greyson's friend the head doctor lay forgotten on his desk as Mordred studied the list of charges to Lian's account. Not just lodgings this month, but a special medication and something called "electrotherapy treatment". Forty-five thousand _sens_. He had deferred the taxes on the house, and he had cut costs where he could, but if this kept up, he didn't see how he could stay afloat.

Behind him, Roy and Riza were sitting by the fire while the boy read the letter from Lian for the fifth time. "_Dear Riza, I miss you and I love you so much_," Roy read in his halting, clumsy way. Riza didn't seem to care that he spoke slowly and awkwardly: she sat with her elbow on his knee, drinking in every word. "_I hope you are being a good girl. Grandfather visits me here, and yesterday he brought me flowers. Are there flowers in the garden at home, yet?"_

"No," Riza said. "No flowers yet. There's still snow!"

"She doesn't know that," Roy explained softly. "She's in Central, which is very far away."

"Oh," Riza said quietly.

"_I want you to take good care of Papa for me. Make sure he washes behind your ears..._"

It continued in the same vein, and Mordred tuned it out. According to the report from Doctor Frederick Heidebrecht, Lian had been writing a great many letters... all of them to Davell. The letter to Riza, which the physician had promised to post, was something of a breakthrough. Lian was improving. She was much calmer now, and needed far less laudanum. The electrotherapy, whatever that was, was helping.

At three thousand _sens, _it had sure as hell better be helping, Mordred thought miserably. He couldn't scrimp any further on the grocery costs. As it was, they only had meat at all thanks to Bella. He had forbidden the children to tell the doctor what they were (or were not) eating. If Bella knew, she would rant and rail, and maybe do something worse, like offer them charity. The suppers she brought over now were just the sort of kindness that one friend might do another, but if she knew how short money was, she would feel obligated to do more. Mordred didn't want handouts. He could take care of his family. He _would_ take care of his family. Somehow.

Once or twice, Riza's excitement about the doctor's "real food" had raised a querying brow, but luckily Roy Mustang managed to distract the physician on those occasions. The boy was actually quite a cool little liar when he wanted to be, and Mordred realized that he would have to keep an eye on him as he grew older.

"..._and a big hug. Momma_," Roy finished.

Riza paused only a moment before fixing her large carmine eyes on him and asking rapturously, "Again?"

"No, that's enough, _chibi-chan_. Time for bed," Mordred said. He wanted the children out of his hair. He needed time alone to think. Time to try to work out a solution to his seemingly insoluble financial difficulties. If only it weren't against the law to turn lead into gold! If only...

He sighed and shrugged. If only.

_discidium_

Roy fingered the corner of Maes's last letter, thinking wistfully of the new one, sitting on the post office shelf, unclaimed and unpaid. It had been four days since he had gone into town, and he had been trying to work up the courage to ask Hawkeye-sensei for the money to get it. He hadn't, as yet, even come close.

The alchemist was worried about money. His desk, usually buried in strange sketches and alchemical texts, was covered in drafts of budgets itemizing every last expense. Something called "taxes" was late, and there was another bill from the hospital to pay. Roy didn't want to put any additional strain on the budget. The letter wasn't that important.

Except to him.

There was a knock at the door, and Hawkeye-sensei rose from his desk to answer it. From his place by the fire, with Riza napping on the floor next to him, Roy could hear the exchange.

"Bella," the alchemist said flatly. Then there was a pause. "You look terrible."

"I've just come from a hard birth," the doctor said. Her voice sounded heavy and worn. "Bertha Strueby's child has been born."

Hawkeye-sensei snorted. "The schoolteacher's sister?" he sneered. "That family is rotten to the core. I suppose it's a grandson for the old man to boast about?"

"A girl," said the physician. "Stillborn... mercifully."

There was an uncomfortable silence. "Oh, god, Bella." The alchemist's voice had changed. It sounded soft and sad and almost... tender. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't be," the lady said. "I didn't come for sympathy. I came because Bertha said Roy didn't pick this up the other day. Short of change for the postage, I gather. She wanted him to have it."

"Oh... do you want to come and give it to him?"

Another silence elapsed. "I have to go home," Doctor Bella said softly. "I'll stop by tomorrow."

Then the door closed. It was a long time before the alchemist came back into the room. There was a bleak, haunted look on his face. He crossed the room and thrust an envelope under Roy's nose. "Here," he said flatly. "The doctor brought it 'round."

He moved to his chair and sat down, his chin cupped in his hand. Roy watched him warily for a moment, waiting for some unexpected motion or sudden anger. When none came, he looked down. Despite the sombre aura around him, he could not help grinning enormously.

It was the letter from Maes.


	32. Summer Sunshine

_Note: "There's a Hole in the Bucket", from German traditional, "Lieber Heinrich"_

**Chapter 31: Spring Sunshine**

Riza was playing quietly in her bedroom. She had her tin soldiers spread across the floor. They couldn't talk or make any noise because the Fuhrer was working and if they weren't very, very quiet he would shout at them and send them to bed. It wasn't a very fun game.

Riza was restless and she was cross. She wanted to go outside, but she couldn't because she didn't have any shoes. She could hardly remember what it was like to play outside, because she hadn't been able to do it all winter. She didn't have a coat any more, either: her nice blue one was too small for her. So she had to stay in the house, and play quietly, and keep out of mischief.

It wasn't fair. Roy was allowed to go outside. He ran most of the errands now. The first few times he had done that, he had come back white and shivering, and had had to sit close to the fire to warm up because he didn't have a coat, either. But now the weather was getting warmer and warmer, and he really seemed to enjoy his walks into town, and Riza couldn't even go into the yard 'cause she didn't have shoes, and it wasn't fair! It just wasn't _fair_!

With an indignant, frustrated huff, Riza kicked over half of her little tin regiment. The Fuhrer was angry, she decided, because the soldiers were pestering him when he was trying to do his research. They all had to go to bed at _once_! She laid each small foot soldier in the wooden case, and closed the lid.

"Go to _sleep_!" she scolded sternly.

The soldiers obeyed her meekly, like good little girls and boys. The only trouble was that now the game was very boring indeed. Deciding that there was no point in continuing, Riza put the case carefully on its shelf. She climbed onto the window seat. The window was sticky after the long winter of disuse, but by straining and pushing with all her might, Riza managed to get it open. The warm, fresh spring air washed over her, and she inhaled enormously.

The prairie grasses stretched out like a green carpet on the far side of the road. The trees were covered in dark foliage. Riza leaned forward onto the sill to look towards the village. There were people in the streets: ladies with babies, children running around happily, men talking on the street corners. Riza was jealous. They were all outside and she was stuck in here 'cause her shoes were too small and the cobbler wouldn't be in town for another few weeks and store-bought shoes were too 'spensive.

There was a sharp, barking _crack!_ as someone came up the stairs. Not certain whether she was allowed to have her window open, Riza clamoured off the window seat and scurried across the room. Maybe no one would notice it if she wasn't standing next to it.

Roy came into the room, an enormous smile on his face. "We're going to plant the garden!" he said eagerly. "Come on!"

"I can't," Riza said, frowning. "I got no shoes."

"It's warm out: you don't need shoes," Roy said.

He was awful happy, Riza thought a little enviously. She had liked it better when Momma still lived in the house, and there had been plenty to eat, and _she_ had been the one who got to cheer _Roy_ up. Now he was busy running errands and doing his lessons and washing the dishes, and he wasn't hardly scared at all anymore. He was still nice, and sometimes he would play with her, and he would never, ever scold her like Papa did, and he would stay with her when she was lonesome and frightened, but he didn't need her as much as he used to. That made Riza sad. He hardly even seemed like her boy now.

"I do need shoes, or my stockings will get dirty," Riza told him. Roy never really understood how yucky it was to be dirty. Neither did Papa.

Roy laughed. He never used to laugh, either. "You're s'posta take your stockings off," he said. He knelt down and started to remove her left one.

Riza stepped back. "I can do it myself," she said. "I'm not a baby. I'm four."

She tucked her thumb against her palm and held up her fingers. Roy nodded. "I just wanted to help," he apologized.

"I don't need help, thank you," Riza said primly. She sat down on the floor and carefully removed her stockings. Her dress was getting short, and there was a broad band of bare skin between the top of the stocking and the bottom of her pantalets leg now. She wiggled her bare toes. "Won't my feet get dirty?" she asked.

"We can wash them later," Roy promised.

"That means they _will_ get dirty," Riza said shrewdly. He couldn't fool her.

"Yes," Roy admitted; "but it's so nice outside, and it'll be fun to plant the garden."

Riza thought about it for a moment, then rose. "Okay," she said. "I'll come outside."

Roy nodded and led the way downstairs and out into the yard.

The sun was warm and gentle, and Riza's skin seemed to drink it in joyously. She looked around the yard as if seeing an old friend for the first time in months. The grass needed raking, and the path to the midden was uneven where the mud had dried. Last autumn's leaves were mouldering about the foot of Davell's tree, and Riza's stump table needed washing. Despite all of this, it was her yard, and it felt so nice to be outside again!

Riza laughed out loud and ran out onto the grass. It was cool and tickly on her bare feet, and the lovely, delicious fresh air blew in her short hair. She twirled in a circle, her arms wide. Then she stopped and clasped her bare knees, giggling a little. Roy was watching her happily.

"Come on, you two. We have work to do," Papa said.

He was standing in the garden where the soil was soft and freshly turned. Papa had a hoe in his hand, and there was another leaning against the fence. He and Roy had obviously been working for a while.

Papa was wearing his oldest clothes, and he had wooden clogs on instead of shoes. His hair, which hadn't been cut since Momma went away, was tied back away from his face, and he looked pale and tired. He tossed Roy a brown paper bag. "Pick out what you want to plant first," he said.

Roy took the bag to the tree trunk table, and opened it. Inside were several little sachets, each stamped with letters. Roy read them. "_Carrots. Radishes. Snow Peas. Green Beans. Yellow Beans. Dillweed. Parsley. Chives. Cham... chahmmmmoww..._" He looked questioningly at Papa.

"The "C-H" makes the "K" sound in that word," Papa said. "_Kam_..."

"_Oh-my-ell_," Roy went on. "_Kam-oh-my-ell. Chamomile._"

"What's chamomile?" Riza asked. "Do you put it in soup?"

"No, it's for tea," Papa said a little shortly. Riza understood why he sounded annoyed: he hadn't had tea for a long, long time. Like shoes and sausages, it was too 'spensive. "Pick something quick. I don't want this to turn into a daylong project."

"Which one would you like?" Roy asked her. "Radishes? Carrots? Snow Peas?"

"Radishes," Riza said. The thought of so many fresh vegetables was making her mouth water. "I want a radish! When can I have one?"

"Not yet," Roy said, looking at the little envelope with a perplexed frown. "They have to grow first, I think."

"Come over here and bring the radishes," Papa said. The children obeyed. Papa took a stick and drew a line parallel to the edge of the garden. He drove the stick into the earth at the end of the line and squatted beside it. "Open the packet and see what's inside."

Roy tore the paper and poured a few of the small seeds into his palm, lowering his hand considerately so that Riza could see them, too. Papa reached over and picked one up between finger and thumb.

"This seed looks dry and dead," he said. "It's shrivelled and hard and tiny. It looks worthless, like something to be thrown away. But there is life hidden inside."

Riza tried to look closer, to see the life. She couldn't. It just looked like a seed to her.

Papa used the tip of his finger to make a little dent in the earth along the line he had drawn. "If we take this seed and put it in the earth," he said; "and if we cover it with soil to keep it warm, and water it and care for it and protect it from the birds who want to eat it and the weeds who want to choke it, then the life inside will make it grow. It will spring out of the seed, and send roots into the soil, and grow and grow until it's a radish that we can eat to keep us strong. All of that will happen because we gave the life in this tiny seed a chance to amount to something. Do you understand?"

Riza nodded, but she could tell that the lesson wasn't meant for her. Papa was talking to Roy again.

"But how do we know the life is there?" Roy asked.

"We have faith," Papa explained. "We know that many other seeds have grown in this way, and we trust that this one will, too."

Roy frowned. "But who decided to plant the first seed? How did that person know that the seed had life?"

A strange, hollow smile touched Papa's lips. "Perhaps he got lucky," he said noncommittally. He put the seed in the indentation he had made, and pushed soil over it. "Put the others close together, following the line," he said. "Be careful not to bury them too deep."

While Papa used chicken wire and sticks to build a wall for the peas and beans to cling to when they started to grow, Roy and Riza planted the radishes. Then they made another line and sprinkled the tiny carrot seeds up and down along it. They planted the herbs in squares at the edge of the garden, and then planted the large round legume seeds near Papa's chicken wire fence. After that, they went to the washtub and filled a bucket with water from the pump. They sprinkled it all over the places where they had planted the seeds.

Then Papa brought out the paring knife and a bag of old potatoes. They were wrinkled and ugly, with yucky white tentacles growing from their eyes. Riza sat on the grass in the sunshine and watched while Roy and Papa built little hills, planting a slice of potato in each, and then watered them heavily. Then Papa put away the hoes, and the garden was finished. In a few weeks, they would have their first fresh, home-grown vegetables.

Papa knelt down and put his hand on Roy's shoulder, looking him right in the eye. "This garden is your responsibility," he said. "You must water it every day, and keep it free from weeds. When the plants begin to grow, I will teach you how to thin them. This is a very important job. This garden will help to feed us all summer. Do you understand?"

Roy nodded. "Yes, sir," he said.

"Good. Do not fail me." Then Papa disappeared into the house. Roy stood for a while, staring at the wide rectangle of soil. He looked proud and anxious all at once.

Riza couldn't help it. She was jealous. Papa had given Roy a very important job. Why hadn't he given her one, too?

_discidium_

Taking care of the garden was an enormous task. Roy spent two or three hours a day in the yard, watering it and weeding it and worrying about it. The weeding was the worst. As the soil settled again, it grew hard, and it was uncomfortable to kneel with his bony knees on the unyielding earth. Picking the little leafy invaders from the ground one by one was tedious and tiresome. Sometimes Riza would come outside with him, having discovered that dirty feet was a small price to pay for escaping the confines of the house. She wasn't much company, though, for she was no longer as talkative as she once had been. She would play her own quiet games, wandering the fertile fields of her imagination, or dig in her sand pile. Sometimes she would watch him while he worked, and Roy half suspected that she wanted to help... but he couldn't ask that of her. He knew it probably _looked_ fun, but the reality was slow, boring and backbreaking.

Today, Riza was inside, working on another picture puzzle. Roy was plucking the weeds by the small, feathery fringe that would one day be tall carrot stalks. It was fussy work, for he had to be careful not to pluck up any of the infant vegetables. The sun was hot, and he wished he had put on Riza's hat, even though he would have looked very silly wearing a girl's straw with a soft chiffon ribbon to tie under the chin.

His knees and calves ached, he was getting very thirsty, and he was still only halfway down the row. He rubbed his nose with the back of his grubby hand and sighed a little. The vegetables would be wonderful to have, and it was important to take good care of them, but it sure took a lot of work.

He needed a drink of water. He got up, dusting off the legs of Davell's pants, which were now permanently stained by the dirt and the grass, and went to the washtub. He worked the pump energetically, filling the bottom of the tub. Then he rinsed his hands as best he could, drained the water away, and filled it afresh. This water he scooped up to his lips, using his hands as a cup in the way that he had always done when he was on his own. The well water was cool and delicious as it slid down his parched throat. He smiled a little. That was better. He could go back to work, now.

He dried his hands on Davell's shirt, and walked back to the garden. He knelt down and resumed his place along the carrot row with renewed resolve. The work was hard, but it was very, very important. When the garden grew, Riza and Hawkeye-sensei and he would have good, fresh food to eat. Roy was sick of string bean preserves and dried peas and salty tinned carrots, and he knew that if _he_ was sick of them, then Riza must be desperate for something better. She was much more particular about food than he was.

Suddenly, he heard singing. A deep, strong bass voice rang out, and a warbling tenor answered it.

"_With what shall I wet it, dear Lizah, dear Lizah? With what shall I wet it, dear Liza, with what?"_

"_Try water, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry. Try water, dear Henry. Dear Henry, try water!"_

"_How shall I draw water, dear Lizah, dear Lizah? How shall I draw water, dear Lizah, draw water?"_

"_With a BUCKET, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry! With a BUCKET, dear Henry, dear Henry, with a bucket!"_

Then several more voices joined the first bass: another tenor, a clarion baritone, a laughing bass, and a warbling, lusty, and 

slightly off-key soprano: "_But there's a HOLE IN THE BUCKET, dear Lizah, dear Lizah! There's a HOLE IN THE BUCKET, dear Lizah, a HOLE!"_

Roy heard the creaking of wagon wheels and the steady plodding of horses hooves as "Lizah" replied: "_Never mind it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry. Never mind it, dear Henry: I'll fix the damned thing myself!_" Then there was the high-spirited nickering of a pony.

Hardly daring to hope, Roy sprung to his feet and ran for the gate as fast as his legs could carry him. His heart leapt within him as he saw the two handsome caravans, the heavy wooden cart, and Tiath Hughes perched on his spritely steed prancing between them. Roy didn't bother to open the gate, but scrambled over the fence and ran across the front lawn towards the approaching convoy.

"MAES!" he shouted as the three drivers coaxed their teams of dray horses to a halt.

From his place on the seat of the lead caravan, Maes Hughes waved eagerly. "Roy!" he cried. The moment the vehicle stopped moving, he sprung down from his perch and ran to hug the smaller boy. He lifted Roy clear off the ground in his enthusiastic embrace. "It's so good to see you!"

"Mmph, Maes, put me down!" Roy gasped, laughing for joy. His friend was back! He had come back! "Put me down!"

Maes obliged, sizing him up. "You've grown," he said, sounding half proud and half annoyed. "Tia, he's grown, doncha think?"

"More than you have, runt," Tiath said.

Maes straightened his back and looked indignant. "I'm not a runt," he said. "I'm just a late bloomer. Boys often don't experience marked growth until their fourteenth or fifteenth year."

Tiath chortled. "Who's been feeding you those lines?" he asked.

"I read it in Eli's book," Maes said. Then he blushed. "The one with the dirty pictures."

"They're not dirty pictures!" protested the glassgrinder. He was sitting with the youngest of Maes' older brothers – whose name Roy couldn't remember – on the seat of the smaller caravan. "They're accurate scientific representations of the female form. It's an anatomy textbook!"

The men all roared with laughter, except for the one with the rectangular glasses, who held the reigns of the cart.

"It _is_!" Eli exclaimed. "I got it off of a medical student I used to know back when I was a journeyman. Her name was Hannah, and she had the most _flexible _pair of—"

Maes let out a moan of agony and clapped his hands over his ears.

"—pair of forceps I've ever seen!" Eli finished smugly, working finger and thumb to mime a pair of tweezers.

"All right, that's enough," chuckled the balding man with whom Maes had been riding. He had a pipe in his teeth and round spectacles on his nose, and Roy realized that he must be Maes' father. "You don't want to be arrested for lewd behaviour your very first day in town, do you?"

"Is he done?" Maes asked Roy hopefully. Roy nodded. Maes sighed in relief. He looked over his shoulder. "Dad, do I _have _to help make camp?" he wheedled. "Can't I stay with Roy for a while?"

The bald man stroked his chin, which was covered in a wispy fuzz that almost, but not quite, looked like a beard. "I don't see why not," he said. "If Mr. Hawkeye doesn't mind?"

"He said Maes could play in the yard," Roy said eagerly. "He said as long as we stay in the yard, we can play all we want. Sir," he added hastily, before the adult could take offence.

The man smiled kindly. "You can call me Absalom. Everyone does. It's a pleasure to meet you, Roy Mustang. We've all heard a lot about you since we left town."

A tormented groan tore the air. This time it came from Eli, not Maes. "We've heard _too much _about you!" he moaned, then winked amicably. "Dad, Maes might like to tarry, but I want to get my old bones into a hot bath! Can we move on?"

"Oh, you want something hot, but it isn't a bath!" the youth next to Eli teased.

"Can't get the latter without the former," Eli said impishly. "I'm sweaty and dusty and I smell like horses."

"I think the farrier's got a daughter," Tiath suggested.

Absalom laughed good-naturedly. "All right, you lot. No more innuendo 'til we're safely through the village. You hear me?"

"Yes, sir," the three men chorused, donning cherubic faces.

"Giddyap, Able. Giddyap, Fold," the tinker said, clicking the reigns against his team. As the caravan started to roll onward, he wagged a finger at Maes. "You be in camp by nightfall, you hear?" he said. "We'll be in the usual spot."

"Sure thing!" Maes said eagerly. He hopped onto the Hawkeyes' front lawn, dragging Roy with him as the convoy moved forward. When the dust cloud that moved in the wake of the broad wagon died down, he turned to Roy, rubbing his hands together and grinning. There was an almost wicked glint in his mossy green eyes... but then again, it might have been the sun reflecting off of his spectacles.

"Well," he said, relishing every syllable. "What are we going to do first?"


	33. Men Of Stone

_Note: Humblest thanks to **Dailenna**, who noticed something that I totally, totally missed._

**Chapter 32: Men Of Stone**

She had criticized, she had argued, and in the end she had affected defeat and stormed from the house. As she stood now before the counter of the dry goods shop, Bella was still not entirely certain that she was in the right.

The children needed new clothes. There was no doubt about that. Riza's dresses were so short that they were almost indecent, and Mordred's argument that they were still structurally sound (he had used the words "perfectly good") was quite beside the point. Lian Hawkeye had made them with the basic assumption of a woman with a comfortable, urban background: that she could afford to buy new goods and sew more dresses next year... and that she would be around to do so. Bella had scrutinized every one of Riza's little frocks, and none of them had a deep hem, a lifted waist, a growth tuck, or any of the strategies that farmers' wives used to ensure that the garments could be let down as their girls shot up.

As for Roy, his single set of clothes was growing disgracefully shabby. It was good enough for grubbing in the garden or playing in the bluffs – not that Mordred _let_ the boy wander so far afield, of course – but the poor little boy needed something respectable to wear when he came into town. By the sound of things, Mordred hadn't ventured out of the house in months: Roy was now the one doing the shopping. Of that Bella was glad: it was good that the boy was taking on some responsibilities, and learning how to function in society. Still, he didn't need to look like a ragamuffin to do so. Bella had tried to go through Davell's things to find something suitable, but all the clothes in the closet were ones that the boy had been wearing the year he died. They would have been enormously too large for Roy, and Mordred had no idea where Lian had kept the older garments. There was nothing for it, then: Roy had to have something made as well.

Still, as she waited for Mrs. Hampton to bring down bolts of durable, practical fabrics, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. True, someone had to ensure that the children were decently dressed. Yes, Mordred wasn't going to do it. But still: making certain that bathing and laundry were taken care of at regular intervals and scolding about the way in which the alchemist heated (or didn't heat) his home were things that a physician had a right to worry about. The esthetics of the children's clothes, however... that was out of the scope of "Doctor Greyson", and smacked more of a meddling spinster.

The pleasant proprietress climbed carefully down her stepladder and set several bolts down on the counter. They were a variety of cottons in simple, pretty patterns. "These will all wear well," Mrs. Hampton said. "They're dyed with that new process they've developed back west: they'll not fade like your ordinary madder dyes. How big is the girl?"

"She's four," the doctor said, fingering the soft cloth. "Perfectly average height and weight."

The shopkeeper nodded and made a note on her pad. "I'd say three yards a frock, then," she said. "You'll want them made for letting out, of course?"

"Definitely," said Bella. "How many do you think an ordinary little girl ought to have?"

"Oh, some get along with two," said Mrs. Hampton. "Personally, I've always thought that a bit mean, no disrespect to folks who can't afford more, of course. My girls always had five or six, but then, they were my little fashion dolls. I'd say four should be more than enough for most children."

"And all cotton?" asked Bella.

"Well, you might want one wool," the lady said. "She's not likely to wear it much in the summer, but you never know."

Bella nodded decisively. "Three cotton and one wool, then." She considered the half-dozen choices before her. "I like this one," she said, pointing to a pale caramel-coloured cloth with sprigs of green and blue flowers.

"She's a blonde?" the other woman asked. Bella nodded. "Yes, then that's a good choice."

The next was a deep cherry red with darker crimson curlicues. Bella looked at it longingly, thinking about how it would bring out the beautiful colour of Riza's eyes... then she pushed it away. "This one is entirely unsuitable, I'm afraid," she said.

The seamstress nodded. "Too showy for a four-year-old, really," she agreed.

Bella nodded in assent, but that wasn't what she had been thinking. As a physician, she heard political gossip well in advance of any other woman in the village. Recently, feelings against the Ishbalans had been running unusually high. She had had more than one patient complaining about those "red-eyed religious nuts", and old Johann Graff the stationmaster had confided in her that one of the foremost generals on Fuhrer McFarland's staff had come out rather strongly against the desert people in a recent address covered extensively by the _Central Gazette_. With Lian out of sight and out of mind, there was little reason for worry. Her mother's dark tresses and brown skin had proclaimed her heritage without a doubt, but Riza's own blonde hair and pale Amestrian complexion might protect her from any racial prejudice. It wouldn't do to draw attention to her eyes.

"The blue check is lovely," Mrs. Hampton suggested, bringing Bella out of her thoughts.

"Yes, yes I think it would suit Riza very well." Bella looked at the others, not really sure what else to choose.

"You'll want one of the frocks to be a bit fancier," the older lady said. "This one would look lovely with a couple of flounces: then she'd have something pretty to wear on special occasions."

Bella looked at the mint green cloth with a fine, vertical stripe in a pale cream. "Yes," she said decisively. "Yes, that's fine."

"The wool ought to be blue," the dressmaker said. She turned and took down a bolt the colour of robin's eggs. "Brass buttons are very popular this year: the military look, you see."

Bella smiled. "I'll leave you to choose the buttons. You have a better eye for it than I do."

The shopkeeper was hardly a proper dressmaker, but she had as much skill with a needle as any woman in town, and a fair sight more talent with a pattern card and a pair of shears than Bella would ever have. The doctor relied upon Mrs. Hampton for her own dresses – which though never the height of fashion were comfortable, practical and hard-wearing. Also, she only charged a hundred and fifty _sens_ (plus cost of goods) for a child's frock.

"Now, the boy," the lady said. "How old?"

"Eight. Small for his age—" Bella stopped to think about small, thin Roy Mustang. He was growing, but he was nowhere near the height he ought to be. She really would have expected better after a year of good food, and if Mrs. Hampton made his clothes with an eight-year-old in mind, the boy might as well try to manage with Davell's things. "_Six_," she corrected herself. "Six years old, small for his age. Very skinny."

"Mmh-hmm," said the lady, making a note. "Now, you'll probably want at least half a dozen shirts, and—"

The shop door opened, and a lanky, dark-haired man sauntered in. The two women turned to look at him. Mrs. Hampton smiled, and Bella felt her heart go very cold.

"Morning, ladies!" Eli Hughes said, strolling up to the counter and leaning against it so that his eyes were level with their bosoms. "This must be my lucky day!"

So the tinkers were back in town, Bella thought. Usually she enjoyed their visits. The glassgrinder was an amicable, charismatic man, and his siblings were for the most part just as pleasant. Also, it was wonderful to be able to offer optical care to her patients... but this year was different.

"Mrs. Hampton, I was meaning to ask," the doctor said, her words sounding distant even to herself. "Have you any old bolts of linen you might be able to let go at a discount? I've been running through bandages at an extraordinary rate this spring."

"Oh, I'll have to check the storeroom," the lady said, just as Bella had hoped. "Won't take a moment."

Eli grinned rakishly at her. "I'll try to endure your absence, ma'am," he said. "Though it's always a tragedy when a beautiful lady leaves the room."

Mrs. Hampton giggled. "Oh, you're a naughty young man, Mr. Hughes!" she said. Blushing happily, she left the room.

Eli turned to Bella. "How's the loveliest physician this side of Central?" he asked smoothly.

Ordinarily, Bella would have been touched, though not moved, by his flattery. She knew it was practically instinct, but that didn't make it any less pleasant. But she had been dreading this confrontation for months.

"Bertha Strueby had a baby," she said softly, keeping her voice low in case Mrs. Hampton had not yet reached the storeroom.

"I heard," Eli said, a little ruefully. "The telegraph operator, wasn't it? Seems to be the local cautionary tale these days."

"It wasn't his," said Bella, not meeting the young man's eyes.

"What? But everyone's saying—"

"I know what everyone's saying. Bertha and Jack are saying it too, but it isn't true," she told him flatly.

"Well, if Bertha and Jack are saying it... did she tell you different?"

There was an anxious look in his eyes now, and all at once what had been until this moment a strong supposition crystallized into a certaintly. "No, she did not," Bella said.

"Then how—"

"Bertha's hair is blonde. Jack Sanford's is red. They both have blue eyes," Bella told him, keeping her voice level and objective even though the emotions she had been ignoring since Bertha's tragic delivery were surging painfully back. "The baby's eyes were green. Her hair was black."

The colour drained from the glassgrinder's face. "But..." he croaked.

Mrs. Hampton chose that moment to come back, two bolts of discoloured, linty linen in her arms. Bella forced a smile.

"Thank you," she said. "If you'll add it to the slate, I'll pick it up when the clothes are finished. At the moment I'm afraid I'm late for a consultation. Good day."

"Wait – what would you like for the boy?" asked the shopkeeper.

"Two pairs of trousers and half a dozen shirts sounds perfect," Bella said. "Whatever you think would be the most suitable. Really, I must go."

"Of course. I'll have them done the middle of next week."

Bella smiled her thanks and started for the door. Eli launched himself off the counter, shot a hasty "See you later, gorgeous!" at Mrs. Hampton, and hurried after her.

"Wait, Doc!" he cried as they stepped into the sunlight. "You can't just walk off!"

"We'll go to the surgery," Bella said. "Even if you don't mind local gossip, you deserve some privacy."

In the safety of her home, Eli sat down at the kitchen table, a haunted, almost nauseated look on his face. "It can't be mine..." he said numbly.

"Did you and Bertha sleep together?" Bella asked, sitting down across from him.

"Well, yes, but..." Eli scrubbed his forehead with his forefinger. "It's never happened before. I thought... you know, that I _couldn't_. Or you'd think it would have happened before now."

Bella nodded understandingly. "I assure you, you can," she said softly.

"Damn it," Eli breathed. He stared at his lap. "They're saying... the girls... they say the baby was deformed..."

"No. Stillborn, but not deformed." She sighed and reached for the glassgrinder's hand. "She had a hard pregnancy. It was for the best."

"I've got to talk to her," Eli croaked. "I've got to explain. If I'd known, if she'd told me I would have come back."

_Why didn't you tell me? Why? I would have come back!_ Familiar words, hauntingly familiar.

"How was she supposed to reach you?" she asked, driving back the ghosts. Eli sighed. Bella had never imagined he could look so miserable. "Jack wants to marry her," she told him.

"_I'll_ marry her," Eli said.

"He loves her."

"I—"

Bella shook her head sadly. "Please don't say it. Be honest. You care about her, and you respect her, and you're maybe even fond of her, but she doesn't mean any more to you than Frieda Thompson or any one of a dozen girls. Jack Sanford loves her. He'll make a better life for her. As soon as he can get the money together, they're going to move away from here. Don't try to interfere."

"I'll help. I'll talk to her. I have money..."

"Don't," Bella said softly. "Just leave her in peace. She told her father it's Jack's child. She wouldn't want anyone to suspect any different."

"Yeah," Eli said hoarsely. "Better a telegraph operator than a wandering tinker's brat."

Bella said nothing. That was, essentially, the crux of the matter. It was better this way. If it had happened differently, if he had known, and come back, and married her, if the child had lived, then she never would have gone to school. Never would have become a doctor. Never would have saved all the lives she had saved... or seen all the deaths she had seen. All the deaths but the first one, that was to say...

Eli scrubbed his face. "Where is she buried?" he asked. "My... daughter."

_discidium_

Eli was miserable. Even after the whole story came out, and the family talked about it, and Absalom took his third son into the big caravan for a long talk, Eli was miserable. So when he asked if Maes wanted to go for a walk, the boy had agreed at once.

They strode in silence, through the village and up to the hill.

"The cemetery?" Maes said softly.

Eli nodded. "The doc said she had the baby buried in her family plot. We're looking for a whole crowd of Greysons."

"Why in her plot?" Maes asked.

"'Cause she's got a big heart,'" Eli said, moving between the graves. "And she said the baby and her neighbour have a lot in common."

"Here we go," Maes said. "Graham Greyson, 1691. Moira Greyson, 1745."

Eli moved to two small tombstones near the end of the row. "Here," he said. "Lucy Strueby..." He made a small choking sound.

Maes moved to look at the stone. It bore the name of the child, and a single date. There was a line of verse below the date. "_Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all?_" Maes read. He looked up at his older brother. "That's... it's sad," he said quietly.

"Yeah," Eli said hoarsely. "Well, whadaya know, Baby Hughes? I'm a daddy."

Maes paused for a moment, hesitating. Then he gripped Eli's hand. "You woulda made a good one," he said him.

Eli laughed a little. "I doubt that," he mumbled. Then he turned to look at the other little stone. "Let's see who your niece'll be spending eternity with, huh?"

The other stone was older: the words, though cut deep, were beginning to show the wear of the years. Maes brushed a smear of mud away from the name. He looked up at Eli. "Morgause Greyson," he said. This stone, too, bore only one date: some twenty-eight years past.

Eli squatted to look at the lines below the date. He read it aloud. "_In birth, reviled. In death, forgotten. Forever loved_." He sat back on his heels. "Damn. I never would have guessed."

"Guessed what?" Maes asked.

"Nothing," Eli sighed. He touched the date with his fingertip. "She would have been fifteen. I wonder who the father was..."

He got to his feet, and Maes looked at the stone again. Morgause Greyson and Lucy Strueby: neighbours until the end of time. It was the first time he had ever really come face-to-face with mortality, and he wasn't sure how to cope with it. He was sad and frightened, and at the same time he felt oddly peaceful. Eli's baby was dead – had died even before she was born – but some part of her would always be here, in this green space above the village, immortalized on the stone over her little grave. It was... comforting.

He forced a grin. "So does this mean I won't have to listen to any more kiss-and-tell stories?" he asked, trying to sound jovial.

Eli chuckled a little and wrapped an arm around Maes' shoulder. "Naw, probably not," he said. "For example, while I was in South City this winter, I met this ballerina named Flossy who..."

Maes didn't even cover his ears or yelp a protest. It was good to know that Eli hadn't changed. That this sadness hadn't broken him. That he was still the same old Eli.

The two lanky figures strode back through town, both a little wiser than they had been half an hour ago, and both a little older.


	34. New Clothes

**Chapter 34: New Clothes**

Boring, boring Maes was at school, so Riza had the benefit of Roy's company on that particular Thursday afternoon in June. He had worked in the garden all morning, had just finished washing the dinner dishes, and was now sitting beside her at the kitchen table, reading something for one of his lessons. Riza, who had been drawing pictures of bugs and flowers on his slate, put down the slate pencil and swung her foot.

"Will you play with me?" she asked softly. Roy never spoke sharply to her if she interrupted him when he was working, but she was always cautious. After all, he _might_ get angry.

Roy looked up from the book and smiled apologetically. "Hawkeye-sensei said I have to learn this lesson," he said.

Riza understood, but she couldn't help asking, "But who will play with me?"

"After I'm done, I will," Roy said.

He wouldn't. Not for very long, anyways. Maybe for a little while, but then school would let out and dumb old Maes would come around, and the two boys would be busy in the yard, playing marbles or stupid knucklebones, or drawing maps in the dirt while Maes talked about all of the far-away places he had seen, or picking aphids off of the tender young plants in the garden.

Roy must have seen the doubt in her eyes, for he smiled kindly. "Here," he said, taking the slate. He hesitated. "Do you want to show your picture to your papa?"

"No," Riza said. Papa wouldn't want to see it: he was too busy.

Roy wiped away her drawing with the side of his hand. He printed tall, tidy letters, naming them as he did. "'R', 'I', 'Z', 'A'," he said. "That spells 'Riza'."

She plucked the slate pencil from his fingers and favoured him with an unimpressed scowl. "I can write my name," she said in prim annoyance.

Just to prove it, she wrote _Riza_ three times. Her letters were squiggly and lopsided, and they looked inferior next to Roy's perfect ones, but she didn't care about that. Then she considered her handiwork. "Roy?" she ventured, hoping he wasn't mad because she had been cross with him. "How do you spell 'Hawkeye'?"

Roy smiled and wrote it for her. Riza copied it inexpertly. "Hawkeye," she said proudly. "Riza Hawkeye."

Someone knocked on the front door. Riza's good mood dissolved right back into a bad one. Yucky Maes with the big glasses was here _already_? It wasn't fair.

Roy left the table hurriedly, and went to answer the door. Riza listened anxiously, expecting to hear the older boy's usual boisterous greeting.

Instead, there came Doctor Bella's voice. "Roy. Is Hawkeye-sensei working?" Roy must have nodded, because the doctor said, "Good."

Roy led the way into the kitchen. Doctor Bella came after him. There were two large, flat boxes in her arms, and a basket hanging from her elbow. She set down the boxes with some difficulty, then put the basket by the sink.

"I brought some soup," she said, lifting out three glass jars with waxed gingham covers and placing them in the ice box. "All you need to do is heat it up on the stove, and it will make a nice supper."

"Did you bring sausages?" Riza asked hopefully. They hadn't had any meat since the last time Doctor Bella had come around. It had been a funny night. Doctor Bella had seemed very sad, and she didn't talk much with Papa, and after supper when Roy was washing the dishes and Papa had retired to the study, Doctor Bella took Riza by the hand and led her upstairs and sat down in Momma's rocking chair. She had told Riza to climb into her lap, and she had hugged her close, and rocked her for a long, long time. At first Riza hadn't known what to think. It had been a long, long time since anyone had had the time or inclination to rock her. But it had felt so nice to pillow her head on Doctor Bella's warm, soft breast, and to have the gentle arms wrapped around her and to hear the soft _creak, creak_ of the chair as it rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It had been even nicer than the beef cutlets that the doctor had brought to eat.

"Not today, I'm afraid," said the physician. "But I'm coming for supper on Saturday night, so don't you let your father try to cook anything, all right?"

"Okay," Riza agreed. "What's in the boxes."

"Presents," Doctor Bella said, grinning playfully. "One for you, and one for Roy."

"Why?" Riza asked. "It's not a birthday." For her birthday, Doctor Bella had brought her a picture book about birds, and a liquorice whip, a little tin locomotive with wheels that really turned, and a brand new puzzle with a painting of horses running in a big, golden field on it.

"Just because," Doctor Bella said. She moved Roy's school book and moved the top box down onto the table. "This one is yours, Riza," she said, and she lifted the flimsy cardboard lid off. "And this one is for Roy."

The two children knelt on the seats of the chairs to look into the boxes. The contents were covered with a piece of white tissue paper. Riza lifted hers first, and clapped her hands. "It's a dress!" she exclaimed. Then she put a hand over her mouth, remembering that good little girls were supposed to be _quiet_. "It's a dress," she repeated in a whisper.

"It's four dresses," the doctor told her. "Go ahead and look at them."

Riza picked up the dress. It was stripey and green, and it had gathered flounces like frilly lettuce leaves. The buttons went up the back, and they were green, too: a darker shade that matched the fat ribbon sash.

"That's for special occasions," Doctor Bella said. "The other ones you can wear every day."

The next dress was a bright, cheerful blue with pretty brass buttons, and Riza bounced with excitement when she realized that it fastened up the front. "I can wear it myself!" she said, pointing at the bright metal discs. "Roy won't have to do it up for me!"

The next dress was a fresh brown colour, with little flowers painted on it. The last one was covered in white and blue checks. "They're pretty," Riza said. She dared to smile. "Thank you, Doctor Bella!"

"I'm making new underthings for you, too," said the lady. "But I wanted you to have these right away. What do you think, Roy?"

Roy was holding a shirt in his hands. It was a pale yellow that was almost white. He was staring at it, and his eyes were wide and glassy.

Doctor Bella's brow furrowed in concern. "Roy? Are you all right?" she said.

He looked up at her, and his lip trembled. "For me?" he said softly.

"Yes, of course!" Doctor Bella laughed a little.

"M-my very own clothes? All my own?" Roy asked, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.

Now Doctor Bella didn't think it was funny. She looked sad. "Yes, Roy. All your own."

Roy dropped the shirt back into the box and got off the chair, throwing his arms around Doctor Bella's waist and hugging her tightly. A small sniffling sound was muffled by the doctor's dress, but Riza thought it sounded like Roy was crying. Doctor Bella knelt down and gathered Roy into her arms, picking him up as if he were much younger than he was. She rested his head on her shoulder and petted his back.

Riza watched in horrified fascination. "How come Roy is crying?" she asked.

Doctor Bella rocked from side to side, cuddling Roy against her. "It's very special for Roy to have new clothes," she explained. "He hasn't had any for a long, long time."

"Oh," Riza said, as if she understood. But she didn't. It had been a long time since _she _had had new clothes, too, and it didn't make her sad to get them. It was exciting, not sad. Anyway, Roy had had Davell's clothes to wear, and they were just fine.

Roy sniffled and raised his head, trying to look stoic despite the tear-tracks on his cheeks. "Th-thank you, Doctor Bella," he said. There was a pause. "You can put me down, now."

The doctor chuckled a little, and set Roy back on his chair. "There are six shirts and two sets of trousers," she said. "You can wear a different outfit every day."

Roy looked dumbfounded. "A _different_ outfit?" he said.

Riza was curious, too. She had lots of dresses, but since he stopped using Papa's old shirts, Roy had only had Davell's shirt and pants to wear. It would be interesting to see him in something else.

"What is going on here?"

Papa was standing in the doorway. He looked very, very angry.

"N-new dresses, Papa," Riza said, but she was frightened by the terrible fire in her father's pale eyes, and her voice sounded timid and weak.

"I can see that," Papa said, forcing the words out through his teeth. He glared witheringly at Doctor Bella. "We discussed this. They don't need new clothes: the ones they have are just fine."

"No," the physician said calmly, straightening up to her full height and squaring her shoulders resolutely. "No, they are not fine. Riza's skirts are so short that she looks like a music hall dancer, and Roy's are little better than the rags he came to you in."

"You take these... _things_, and you get out of my house!" Papa seethed. "I don't need your handouts!"

"They aren't handouts, they're a gift," Doctor Bella said. "A gift from an old friend."

"Like hell!" he snapped, marching into the room. "You think I can't take care of my family! You think I'm too poor to provide for the children, so you're stepping in! Well, I'm not so skint that I'll be beholden to a meddling, self-righteous _woman_!"

"You're being impossibly stiff-necked," said the doctor, still keeping her voice calm but firm. "You ought to know by now that I'd never hold you beholden for anything."

"You can say what you like, but we're not accepting these. You get them out of here, or I'll flame them to ashes!" He reached into his pocket and brought out the little flint that he used when he did his fire alchemy. Seeing it, Roy gasped. He hated Papa's fire alchemy: it scared him.

"That makes sense!" Doctor Bella mocked. "You won't let the poor little things _wear_ them, but you'll destroy perfectly good garments just to satisfy your pride! You're the most stubborn, self-centred, irresponsible man I've ever met, Mordred Hawkeye! If I left you alone, you'd do nothing but stew in your own secretions – and you know what? That would be fine! But Roy and Riza still have humanity and dignity, and I'm not going to let you take that away from them! You want to feel sorry for yourself because your son is dead and your wife is mad and your precious research is going nowhere, then fine! Fine! But you aren't going to let the little ones suffer because of it!"

"I'm not making them suffer!" Papa snarled. "The clothes they have are perfectly—"

"Don't you dare tell me they're fine!" Doctor Bella said. She grabbed hold of the chair Roy was sitting in, and turned it so that Papa could see his skinny legs covered in a loose, baggy layer of stained fabric that was worn to the warp over his knees. "Look at him, Mordred! He's wearing right through them. An active, growing child needs more than one set of clothes! How do you think he feels, sitting naked in a sheet half the afternoon when you need to wash them? How is he supposed to have any self-respect if he can't even dress like a normal boy?"

She rounded the table, grabbed Riza, and stood her on the table. "Look at your _daughter_!" she said. "Do you want the old gossips to make comments about the length of her legs, or how shabby her pantalets are? Do you want her to grow up with the reputation of a pauper whose father can't even dress her properly? Do you want her coming down with a chill because she has nothing decent to wear? Be reasonable, Mordred! All I'm asking you to do is let me help out a little! You've no problem with me darning their socks or bringing over the odd meal: how is this any different?"

"It's different!" Papa exclaimed. He grabbed Roy's new yellow shirt, and waved it around. "Helping with the mending, coming over to join us for supper – those are the sort of things friends do. The sort of things women _do_ when there's no mother in the house. This... this is _interference_! You're saying I can't dress them properly!"

"You _can't_!" cried Doctor Bella. "You can't, or you won't! Their appearance is proof enough of that."

Roy reached out towards the alchemist. "Th-that's mine," he said, much more boldly than Riza would have dared to.

Papa turned on him. "And what's wrong with the clothes I gave you?" he demanded. "You ungrateful gutter brat – I've taken you into my house, fed you at my table, let you sleep in my own _son's _bed, and now you're siding with this meddlesome old maid against me?"

Doctor Bella stepped between Papa and Roy, who looked as if he had been slapped right in the face. "Mordred, that's enough. You're flying off the handle—"

"Damn you to hell! Get out of my house! Get out and take your charity with you! I'd rather they both go naked than accept your handouts!"

Riza stiffened. Modesty was a relatively new concept, but like all recent converts to a new way of thinking, she took it very seriously. She wouldn't even let Roy in the bathroom when Papa was washing her anymore!

"But then everyone will see my bare bum!" she yelped in horror.

The two adults froze in their coiled, incensed stances – Papa like a snake poised to strike, and Bella like a stoic she-bear, fearless and erect – and they looked very slowly at Riza. Then they turned back to stare at one another.

It was Doctor Bella who laughed first, a high, roiling giggle that bubbled up from her belly and spilled out of her mouth even as she clapped a hand to her lips in an attempt to stifle it. Her face was split by an enormous smile, and she started to double over as the laughter grew.

Papa snorted, then began to chuckle, and soon he, too, was laughing so hard that tears rolled down his cheeks. "_Chibi-chan_, you... y-you..." he tried, but he couldn't form the words.

Roy watched the two adults anxiously for a moment, then looked at Riza. Then he laughed a little. "I think you're s'posta say 'bottom'," he said to her. "'Bum' isn't a nice word."

Slowly, the doctor gained her composure, and Papa's face settled into its usual grave lines as he wiped his eyes. Then he threw Roy's shirt down on the table, and glared at the doctor.

"Do whatever the hell you want, you boneheaded old harpy," he growled, but Riza could tell he wasn't angry anymore. "You know you will anyway!"

Then he stomped from the room.

The two children watched Doctor Bella, wondering what she would do. They both wanted the beautiful new clothes desperately, but after Papa's tirade they were afraid even to hope that they might be allowed to keep them.

Doctor Bella's mouth curled into a bemused smile. "I think that means I won," she said, half to herself. Then she turned to the children and clapped her hands. "Well, why don't you two pick out something and change into it?"


	35. Broken

**Chapter 34: Broken**

For the twelfth or fourteenth time today, Mordred set down his fountain pen with an angry snap of the wrist. Ink spattered across yet another useless drawing, ruining it entirely. What was the use? He was completely uninspired. He felt as if he didn't have a devious bone in his body, and the effort of encrypting the instructions for what he had come to think of as his Great Method into a code undecipherable to the average alchemist was beginning to take its toll.

_Your son is dead, your wife is crazy, your work is going nowhere_. The essence of Bella Greyson's outburst during their argument on Thursday played out in Mordred's mind yet again. He had to admire her skill. She had progressed from an annoying prick to the skin, to a deep, fresh and painful cut in his flesh, to an incision that left his innards denuded and vulnerable. His attempts to protect his genius, his life's work, his _magnum opus_... they were, quite literally, going nowhere.

Mordred clenched his fist in annoyance and launched himself out of his chair. Agitated, he crossed the room and gripped the mantelpiece, staring into the dying embers of the fire.

Bella. Damn her for an interfering spinster. Not enough that she scolded like a shrew, telling him how to raise his children – no, _the _children: _his_ daughter and the little throwaway who ought to be grateful for what he had been given instead of pining for fine clothes and other luxuries. Not enough that she acted as if he was completely ignorant of the basic concepts of cleanliness and housekeeping. No, she had to come and inundate them with her misguided charity.

Worst of all, the charity was not entirely misguided. The children needed new clothes, and as Riza had pointed out in her innocent candour, they couldn't go naked. There wasn't enough money for milk, much less the goods and labour needed to sew new clothing. Mordred was failing to provide for his little family, and he knew it, and that knowledge was a blow to his pride that he was finding damnably hard to live with.

"Hawkeye-sensei?" a wary voice ventured.

Roy Mustang was peering into the room. His body was still in the corridor, and his hand had a firm hold on the doorknob, ready for a quick escape. Both he and Riza had lately been behaving as if Mordred frightened them, and the alchemist couldn't think why. It annoyed him. He didn't like or understand timidity, having always been ready to speak his own mind, and his Riza, at least, was ordinarily such a buoyant, vivacious child. It hurt Mordred to see her shy away from him, and it angered him to watch as the boy moved subtly adn protectively nearer to her whenever the alchemist entered the room.

"What?" Mordred said impatiently. The boy was wearing one of the new shirts and a pair of fresh-looking trousers. The garments were a little too loose: obviously, whoever had made them had underestimated his emaciation. That meant that it hadn't been Bella. Fresh anger roiled up. She had even gone to a dressmaker! The clothes were not only new, but expensive; and with that knowledge died any hope Mordred had entertained of managing to pay off the cost of the goods a little at a time. The fact that the boy really did look much more respectable in the new things did nothing to settle the alchemist's black mood.

"D-D-Do-oc-cc..." Roy stopped, closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and tried again. This time the words came out without a stutter. "Doctor Bella is here. She brought supper."

Something snapped inside. Mordred seized the little ceramic jar that was meant to hold matches, and had stood empty on the mantle since his father's death.

"You tell her to go to hell and take you with her!" he hollered, hurling the pot at the child. The boy was too quick, however. He beat the retreat for which he had planned, and the jar shattered against the hastily closing door.

His rage deflating rapidly into befuddled despair, Mordred sank to his knees on the hearthrug. The world had turned so very, very wrong, and he didn't know why. With all of his brilliance and his knowledge and his skill, he couldn't fix it, and the agony and confusion and helplessness was killing him.

How had it ever come to this?

_discidium_

Doctor Bella was watching the door warily when Roy returned to the kitchen. She had probably heard the crash, and he knew that he was white and shaking. He could feel his heart hammering against his chest.

He tried to calm down. Maes was always saying he was too jumpy, and anyway he didn't want to scare Riza she had been frightened enough since Thursday, and he knew that her father's temper troubled her much more than it did him.

"He's not coming," Roy said, hating himself for the quavering lilt to his voice. "He's..." He cast about for a believable lie. "He's busy. He's working."

Doctor Bella took his arm and guided him to his seat as if she understood how hard he was struggling to keep control. "That's all right," she said cheerfully. "The three of us can keep each other company."

As the meal progressed, Roy found it easier and easier to maintain his mask of serenity. Doctor Bella was telling them about a fawn she had seen the other day, and her pleasant voice as she moved through the unremarkable story was soothing. The food was warm and fresh, and Riza seemed genuinely happy for the first time in days. Roy began to relax. It was so lovely to let Doctor Bella take control, and have her be the strong one for a while.

When they were finished eating, Roy pushed a chair over to the sink and set about washing the dishes. Doctor Bella suggested that Riza bring down a story that she wanted to hear, and Riza ran off full tilt to fetch G.G. Gunhold's _Collected Works for Children_. At first Roy felt hurt that Riza was so excited to be read to by the adult, for she was never _this_ enthusiastic when he offered the same service. After a few minutes of listening to Doctor Bella, though, he understood why. Where he had to concentrate all his energies on simply getting the words out right (G.G. Gunhold used some terribly long words, like "resident", "armadillo" and "ceasefire"), the physician read with enthusiasm and inflection. She used funny voices for the different characters in each story, and she would hug or jiggle or tickle Riza as the story seemed to warrant. After a while the little girl actually started to take an interactive part in the stories.

When the plates were put away, and Doctor Bella's serving dishes tucked safely in her basket, Roy sat down at the table to listen, too. Finally, when the darkness was pressing against the kitchen window and Riza was nodding enormously, Doctor Bella closed the book. "Time for a bath, little one," she said.

"But Papa's working," Riza protested. "I can't wash my hair all by myself, even though I can brush it now 'cause it's short like Roy's."

"I can help you wash it," promised the physician.

Riza shook her head. "It's private," she said. "Only Papa can help me. And Momma," she amended loyally. "Not Roy."

Roy didn't understand why. He helped Riza with everything else: he even fed her when Hawkeye-sensei forgot. It didn't make sense that bathtime alone was something private. He waited for Doctor Bella to refute the myth, or at least to explain.

Instead, the adult nodded. "That's so," she said. "Bathtime is very private. Boys can't help girls bathe. Only Mommas and Papas can. And doctors. Doctors can do private things, too, and sometimes they help patients take baths. I help lots of old grannies and grandfathers take their baths, you know."

"My grandfather, too?" Riza asked.

Doctor Bella smiled. "No, he's a spry young grandfather and he can wash himself. But lots of the old ladies and gentleman in the village can't clean their own hair, so I help them."

"Oh." Riza looked thoughtful. "I miss my grandfather."

"Yes, I know," Bella said, and she kissed Riza's forehead. Then she stood and carried the little girl from the room. Roy heard the sharp _crack_! of the bad step, and then the rattling and creaking of the distant pipes as the tub was filled with water.

He looked around the empty kitchen, then pulled _Collected Works_ across the table towards him and opened it to the story of Howard, the silly baby hippo who wanted to be the king of the savannah.

_discidium_

The children were in bed, and Mordred, as always, immured in his sanctum when Bella left the Hawkeye house. She walked through the empty village and stopped at the livery stable to tell the groom's boy that she was back at home. Then she closed her door, leaving it unlocked as she always did, lest a supplicant come in the middle of the night and find her difficult to awaken. She put her basket in the kitchen and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

She changed into a soft linen nightgown and brushed her long hair, one hundred strokes as Grandma Greyson had taught her. She looked at herself in the mirror of her mother's vanity. A plump, pleasing face stared back. An aging face, with laugh lines at the mouth and feathers of grey at the temples. It was a face that would have looked well on a mother whose first son was starting an apprenticeship in the trades, whose daughter was thinking of marriage. She was no longer a girl, no longer one whom men would look to when searching for a wife, for a mother for their children.

Her medical training told her that her body was not yet past its prime: that a healthy pregnancy was still possible, that she might, yet, have children of her own... but who would father them? Not the village boys whom she had played with in her youth, for they were all staid men of the town now, with wives and children and even grandchildren of their own. Not the young men of the next generation, for to her they were still children, the little bundles of wrinkles and meconium that she had drawn safely into the world. Even Eli Hughes, the cocky, merry glassgrinder, was too young in her eyes as she was too old in his.

No, the time had come to stop dreaming. She had lost her chance years ago, on the night that a hurt and frightened fifteen-year-old had grappled with the devil and won. Bella remembered that night: the tears and the rage and the pale moonlight spilling over her pillowcase and the gingham frock of her beloved rag doll. She remembered flinging herself onto her bed and sobbing with all her might, terrified of the life within her and of the angry father downstairs and of the horrid, knowing look in her Grandmothers eyes as she confessed her shame. She remembered weeping until she had the strength to weep no more, and then lying there for an eternity. Then she remembered taking out the sheet of paper, and uncorking her inkwell, and sucking the oil from a brand new nib for her pen... and then deciding that she would not write.

Unlike Bertha Strueby, young Bella Greyson had known exactly where to reach her lover. She had known that he would come back the moment he knew what their innocent night of thoughtless teenage passion had come to. She had known with the certainty of one who could see his every thought and predict his every mood, that he would have left his hard-won apprenticeship and they would have been married in the mayor's parlour, and her shame would have been erased. And she had chosen not to write to him.

Often in the long, lonely years that followed, as her friends caught husbands one by one, and called her at ungodly hours to deliver their children safely into the world; as even solitary Mordred Hawkeye had found his exotic bride and brought her to the big house on the edge of town; Bella had regretted that decision. Not always, for she could see the good that had come of it, the lives she had saved, the difference she had made. She was not discontent with her life or her work – but she could not help sometimes wishing that she had taken the other path, and wondering what life would have been like had she decided, after all, to write that letter.

Well, tonight she would write _this _one. It was a very different epistle, but no harder to write. The difference, though, was that it was not on her own behalf that she was writing. The stakes were much higher than the reputation and the heart of a silly little child. Two young lives were riding on this, and the sanity and peace-of-mind of a stubborn, middle-aged alchemist.

She didn't know what department he worked in. She would not even have had his name, except that it was written on the wedding invitation. All she knew was that he worked in Central, at the military headquarters, and that his rank was major. That ought to be enough, though. Surely the mailroom in Central would forward it to the right office. She bit her lip, contemplating her wording, then smoothed the cream-coloured stationary that bore her name and her professional epithet. In the neat, flowing script for which the local apothecary loved her, she began to write:

_Dear Major Grumman, I am writing as a Close Friend of the Hawkeye family, and as the Physician who offered Care to your daughter during her Many Years in our village..._

_discidium_

A horrible, terrified shriek woke Roy in the middle of the night. For a gut-wrenching moment, he was lying on a flea-ridden straw pallet in a draughty hall in East City, listening as some other child had the misfortune to be the one to awaken all the others. Then, as he came tumbling back into the present, he rolled out of Davell's bed, stumbling a little in his haste to get to the door, and hurried into Riza's room.

He could see her silhouette against the wall, bolt upright in bed as she screamed, lost in the horrors of her own mind. Roy took hold of her shoulder and tried to pat her back. "Ssh," he whispered hastily. "Ssh, Riza, it's all right. It's okay."

It was just for a minute, he knew. Then Hawkeye-sensei would hear, and he would come up the stairs or down the hall from his own bed, turn up the gas and take her into his lap to comfort her. Gradually the screams would stop, and then the weeping, and then she could go back to sleep.

But Riza screamed again, and there was no reassuring footfall in the corridor. No crack like a gunshot as the man came hurrying from his study. Riza was shaking, fat tears of terror splashing onto Roy's hands. He climbed onto the bed and tried to hug the child.

"Don't cry," he begged. "Please, please wake up! Riza, please wake up!"

His own voice was growing more panicked, and he could feel the desperation building. Where was Hawkeye-sensei? Why wasn't he here?

"Please, please!" Roy cried. He was crying himself, now. She wouldn't calm down! How could he calm her down? "Please, Riza, _please_ wake up!"

The bedroom door flew open, and the gas flared up like a torch. Roy backed away in relief, so that the alchemist could take over. Hawkeye-sensei was still in his clothes: he had obviously been working in his study. He brushed past the boy, took hold of Riza's shoulder, and slapped her face firmly. Startled out of her night terror, the little girl drew in an enormous hiccough of air.

"In the name of Aristotle, will you shut _UP_!" Hawkeye-sensei snapped. Riza's eyes went enormously wide, and her little hand flew to her cheek, which bore a scarlet handprint. The alchemist released his hold on her arm, flinging her back against her pillow, and then stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him.

For a moment, Roy couldn't move. Riza's lip quivered, and fresh tears that had nothing to do with the bad dream welled up in her carmine eyes.

"Riza... I... it's okay, I'm here..." Roy croaked out, holding out his arms to try to calm her.

Riza threw herself against her pillow, burying her face in the muslin of its case. Silent, sundering sobs shook her small body. When Roy tried to touch her, she whimpered and shrank away.

Not certain what else to do, he got off the bed. He moved across the gas-lit room and pulled her toybox across the floor. He pressed it against the door, hoping that its weight would prevent any intruder from entering. Then he sat down with his back to the toybox and watched silently, his heart aching, as Riza's sobs died away to whimpers, and then finally to the slow, rhythmic breathing of exhausted slumber. He wasn't sure when it happened, exactly, but after a while his eyes began to feel heavy, and his limbs went limp, and he fell asleep, curled on the floor before her door. The beaten stray she had taken into her home and her heart had grown into a possessive guard dog.


	36. Consolation

**Chapter 35: Consolation**

Riza was sitting at her tree stump table, watching as Roy Mustang and a tall lad whom the doctor said was the son of an itinerant tinker swarmed over the garden like a pair of bony locusts. The boys worked with intent industry interrupted only when the elder one said something that made them both laugh.

From his vantage point at the kitchen window, Leslie Grumman watched the children with interest. The boy was much more confident than the skittish creature he had been last year, and he looked considerably healthier, too. He was flourishing – and growing – like a weed. A spindly, black-haired weed.

Riza, on the other hand, had changed in a very different way. She was taller and thinner than Grumman remembered. Some of that was the natural loss of puppy fat as a toddler grew into a child, but that couldn't explain it all. Either Riza hadn't been eating well, or Mordred hadn't been feeding her properly.

There was a difference in her manner now that surprised and saddened the young grandfather. When he had arrived yesterday afternoon, no joyous welcome had been forthcoming. Riza had stood silently a pace behind Roy, watching Grumman with large, sombre crimson eyes until he greeted her by name and held out his arms for a hug. Even then the embrace had been a subdued, dutiful one. Worse, in place of her merry chatter was a reluctance to volunteer any information that was not solicited directly. While the major had expected some change – both because it had been more than a year since his last visit and because in recent months fate had brutalized the little family – he had not expected to find a completely different child in place of the Riza he remembered.

The one change that he _did _like was her hair. The socially-acceptable, prim little plaits had been shorn off, leaving a short, boyish bob of smooth gold. It was cute, practical and peppy, and gave her face a becoming elfin quality. Grumman did not subscribe to the popular notion that a woman's hair was her crowning glory. Why, his own warrant officer wore her honey-coloured tresses exactly as Riza now did, and she was a capable soldier and a damned fine woman.

And look at all the trouble long hair could cause an active girl! General Armstrong's daughter insisted on keeping her long, flowing mane despite the stringent parade regulations at the National Academy in Central. That the lass was only fourteen was disruptive enough. That she had the hair of a debutant and the fierce, magnetic charisma of a tigress had the first-year class (primarily sixteen- to eighteen-year-old boys) in chaos. Luckily, according to rumour, the child had her father's mettle, the Armstrong family stubborn streak, and her grandfather's way with a blade. Still, she could have done without the rippling waterfall of white-gold silk.

No, Grumman decided. Pert, practical haircuts were best, and Riza looked quite charming with hers.

The back door opened and the handsome lady doctor came into the lean-to with a basket of laundry on her generous hip. Grumman turned from the window and smiled at her.

"I can't thank you enough for coming," the woman said, setting down her burden and smoothing her frock. "I know it was forward of me to write to you as I did, but I'm at my wits' end.

Leslie nodded. "Forward" was a polite word for it. It was nothing short of scandalous. Grumman, however, nourished a secret passion for scandal-raising, and he admired those who did what they had to do regardless of the social niceties and consequences.

"I'm glad that you did," he said. "From the look of things, my son-in-law isn't managing very well without his better half. At least the children look well."

"You should have been here two months ago," the physician said despairingly. "I've bought them clothes since then. Mordred was furious."

Grumman twisted his face into a parody of consternation. "You bought them _clothes_? To _wear_?" he gasped, as if appalled. "How could you? What kind of a person are you?"

Greyson sighed. "You see?" she said. "You understand. Mordred... well, I'm not sure he's ever going to forgive me for that." She looked out the window. "Riza needs new shoes, too. There should be some of Davell's around here that will fit Roy, but Mordred doesn't know where, and he won't let me look. He's..."

"Pigheaded," Grumman said sagely, twisting the corner of his moustache. "Always has been. Have you known each other long?"

"As long as I can remember," said the doctor. "Our mothers were the best of friends: since we could walk we've been the same. Until recently. Since his... your... since Lian's committal Mordred has been getting more and more unreasonable. He's forgetful, short-tempered. I think..."

She hesitated, scrubbed her face with her hands, and forced herself to continue.

"I think he's in financial difficulty," she said.

Grumman felt an empathetic pang. That had been hard for her to say, and he knew why. She was an unmarried woman. Doctor or not, to make allegations about the finances of a man who was not in her immediate family was a grave breach of the rules that governed polite society. Though the last few decades had brought many advances to attitudes towards women, with the increase in female physicians, soldiers, and even alchemists, there was still an expectation that a well-bred lady had little interest even in her own economic situation – much less that of a friend; and a male friend, no less.

"I see," he said. "I'll talk to him about it. He's more likely to listen to me than he is to you: I'm family, after all."

Greyson's relief was tangible. "Thank you," she said. "If he were only handling it better, I wouldn't worry so much, but his temper has been frightfully short, and I'm concerned for the children. I know that he shouts at them a great deal now, and they won't say anything, of course, but I have a feeling that that isn't all."

Grumman looked out the window at his now sombre, silent little granddaughter. "I'm inclined to agree," he said. "Don't worry. I'll see what can be done."

_discidium_

Riza's grandfather came out of the house. "Dinnertime," he said, holding out his hand to the little girl.

Roy looked up from the new pea pod he had been studying. Maes shrugged and set down the trowel. "See ya later," he grunted.

"No, please join us," Major Grumman told him. "There's plenty to eat."

Roy was shocked. Maes wasn't allowed in the house – but then, Riza's grandfather had said yesterday that he would be taking care of things for a while so that Hawkeye-sensei could rest and spend time on his research. Maybe, if he said it was all right, then Maes could stay...

"Thanks!" said the older boy, grinning indolently. "I never turn down a free meal."

"What a coincidence," said Riza's grandfather. "Neither do I!"

He led the children into the house, where four places were set.

"Now, I'm not much of a cook," the man warned them, taking Riza's plate and heaping carrots onto it. There was butter on them, Roy realized, his mouth watering. They hadn't had butter since the fall. "I've been a widower for fifteen years, and I haven't improved one bit."

"Sausages!" Riza exclaimed, as her grandfather put one of the plump curls of savoury meat next to the vegetables.

The man smiled so that his moustache wiggled. "That's right, sweetpea," he said. "I bought them just for you."

"Mm-mmh!" Riza smacked her lips eagerly, waiting as the adult cut the meat for her.

"Help yourselves, boys," said Grumman. "But not too much: I bought half a dozen sticky buns for dessert, and my doctor tells me I'm not supposed to have them. Tell me, my boy, how many does that mean each of you can have?"

That was an easy question. "None, sir," Roy said. "They're too expensive."

"I tell you, they're bought and paid for and you kids had better enjoy them, or I'll be mighty cross!" the major said, glaring comically at them. "Two each, I say! Unless, of course, you'd like to save one for a mid-afternoon snack."

Maes speared his sausage and took a large bite. "So are you Mr. Hawkeye's dad, or Mrs. Hawkeye's?" he asked.

"Mrs," Grumman told him. "I'm sorry, Riza, love, but I couldn't chase down any milk this late in the day. Orange juice will have to do. I squeezed it myself, you know."

He took a pitcher from the counter and poured a pulpy, bright yellow liquid into Riza's tin mug. Then he filled ceramic cups for Roy, Maes and himself, and sat down, stretching his short legs out under the table. "Tuck in, my lad," he said to Roy. "You need to get some meat on those bones of yours. Seems to me your body's been putting all its energy in growing up instead of out."

Roy flushed. It had been a long time since anyone had remarked on his thinness, but it still brought back unpleasant memories of Mrs. Hawkeye's critical gaze as she remarked: _eight years old and skinny as a stick: it's unnatural!_ Roy couldn't help being thin: it was hard to be plump and natural-looking when you were used to having almost nothing to eat. And lately, anyway, he _had_ been getting taller. He agreed with Riza's grandfather that that was probably where all of his food was going these days.

"So, then, what's your name?" the soldier said. It was easy to forget that he was in the military: he was cheerful and kind, and he wasn't wearing his uniform, and he had never once grabbed Roy by the ear or shook him 'til his teeth rattled or planted a firm boot on his backside.

"Maphs Huphgff," Maes said, trying to talk around a mouthful of carrots. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and swallowed. "Maes Hughes," he repeated, more coherently. "Atcher service."

"Leslie Grumman, at yours," Riza's grandfather said politely. "Tell me, now, you're father's a tinker, is that right?"

"Best damned tinker in the Eastern province!" Maes said proudly. Then he looked at Riza and flinched sheepishly. "Sorry. Best _darned_ tinker," he corrected.

"I'm sure he is," said Grumman. "How does your mother like the wandering life?"

"She doesn't wander much anymore," Maes said candidly. "She's six feet under in a clearing halfway between New Optain and East City."

Roy shook his head a little, wondering if there was anything that Maes _wouldn't_ say.

"Six feet under what?" Riza asked suspiciously, mashing a forkful of carrots and scooping it onto her fork.

"It means she died, sweetpea," said the adult. "And went to a better place."

Roy wondered if he really meant that. Hawkeye-sensei had told him that "a better place" was Mrs. Hawkeye's way of saying that Davell wasn't coming back, because she believed that he was somewhere else, now. But the alchemist had also said that that was a false, misguided idea. The dead boy hadn't gone anywhere, better or otherwise, except up the hill to the graveyard. Though the child didn't know it, this explanation had his mind equating religious belief in an afterlife with Mrs. Hawkeye's madness: the alchemist had effectively laid the groundwork for passing on his modern agnosticism.

"Oh," Riza said sombrely. She looked at Maes with a new understanding in her eyes. "Were you lonesome 'til Roy came, too?" she asked.

"Naw!" Maes said. "I've got five brothers and Dad. We keep each other pretty busy."

Grumman whistled softly. "Five brothers? I wouldn't want your father's job!"

"It's Gare who keeps us in line, mostly," Maes said. "Tiath and Ira joke that he's the mother, now."

Riza shook her head. "A boy can't be a mother," she said. She looked at her grandfather. "Can he? Or is Roy my mother, now?"

"No, sweetpea, only girls can be mothers," Grumman said. "Maes only means that..." He glanced sidelong at the bespectacled boy.

"Gareth," Maes supplied.

"That his brother Gareth does a lot of the things that a mother would do."

Riza nodded. "So does Roy," she said. "He ties my pinny."

"Yes, and I see he takes care of the garden, too," the adult said a little too cheerfully, in a way that told Roy he was trying to change the subject. "That's a big responsibility. It looks like you're doing a very good job."

Roy flushed a little at the unexpected words of praise. It wasn't often that he was told he was any good at anything at all. "Thank you, sir," he said.

"It's fun," Maes put in. "I've never grown anything before. Roy says the radishes'll be ready to eat soon?"

"That's what Hawkeye-sensei told me," Roy said.

"I'll have to take a look," said Grumman. "I used to do a little gardening myself, before my last promotion. A major has too much work to do to enjoy such a time-consuming hobby."

Riza set down her fork. "Grandfather?" she said. "Is _my_ momma in a better place, too?"

Maes grimaced a little, and Major Grumman shook his head sadly. "No, sweetpea. Your momma is just fine. She's in a special hospital in Central now, so that she can rest and get well again."

"But when is she going to get well?" Riza said, her voice wavering in a way that told Roy she was trying not to cry. "She's been gone a long, long time!"

"I know, Riza, baby," the man said gently. "But it's not as if she has the sniffles in her nose. She's very sick now, and it's going to take a while for her to get better."

"But it's _been _a while!" Riza cried, her voice breaking as she covered her face and sobbed into her hands. "I want my momma! I want my momma!"

The adult got up and lifted her into his arms, cuddling her close. "I know, baby. I know," he said softly, and Roy could see that there were tears in his eyes, too. "You boys finish your dinner," he said, trying to sound cheerful. "The sticky buns are in the icebox. Enjoy."

Murmuring soft, consoling words to Riza, he carried her from the room and away from the two boys, who sat in consternated silence until Maes spoke.

"Poor li'l sprog," he said gruffly. "Eli says Ira used to do that, too. Only _his_ mother wasn't coming back."

"Don't you ever miss her? Your mother, I mean?" Roy asked. He didn't remember enough of his own to _miss_ her, exactly: dark eyes and smooth ebony hair that smelled like saffron, no lap and an enormous belly where the baby was growing, and a thin mouth that was always turned up into a smile... or maybe a smirk. Still, he sometimes wished she was here. He didn't want parents as much as he once had, for now he had a safe place to live, and food to eat, and clothes to wear, but sometimes he had a feeling that life would be better if he had parents.

"Naw, I never met her," Maes said. "She was dead before I was born, remember? Ben cut me right out of her belly. Sometimes I wonder stuff, though, you know? Like what she liked to eat, and if her cooking was _really_ better than Gare's, or if Tia just likes giving him the gears. Or how her voice sounded, or what she looked like. She had bright red hair, see: Dad still wears a bracelet made out of it. I wish I had a picture of her, or something, but you know how it is. They just never bothered with it. Figured she'd be around forever, I guess."

Maes shrugged his shoulders and pushed his glasses back into place. "C'mon, finish your dinner. There's a sticky bun in that ice box with your name on it!" he said.

_discidium_

Leslie closed the door of the room once occupied by his grandson with care, not wanting to wake the young sleeper within. Roy was dead to the world, and had apparently been so for quite some time. Riza, conversely, had been difficult to put to bed. First she had wanted story after story, and then she had begged him to sing to her, and then she had insisted that he rub her back until she drifted off to sleep. If Grumman didn't know his granddaughter well enough to be certain that she was afraid of nothing, he would have sworn that she was frightened to be left alone. Having at last settled her for the night, and checked briefly on Roy, the soldier had the most difficult task of the evening still ahead.

He could never remember which step was the bad one, so a rapport like gunfire echoed in the stairwell. He flinched apologetically, hoping that the children had not been awakened. When no sound came from above, he descended to the corridor and rapped on the door of the study.

There was no answer. Irritated, Grumman knocked again. Mordred had not deigned to make an appearance to greet him yesterday, and had already sequestered himself away by the time the soldier had risen from the parlour sofa this morning. While he didn't expect is son-in-law to roll out the red carpet to welcome him, a simple "good day" and an inquiry after Lian seemed to be in order.

When there was again no reply, Leslie jiggled the door handle. It turned with ease, but the door was locked fast. Ruefully, he spotted the array carved into the wood. Undoubtedly there was one on the other side, as well, and the alchemist had used his art to lock himself in – and the world out.

Not easily discouraged, Grumman knocked a third time. No response. So he went outside, closing the front door carefully behind him, and walked around to the study window. The shade was pulled low, but he could see the glow of firelight seeping around the edges. He felt the edge of the sill with expert fingers, and sure enough: there was a knothole. It wasn't large, but he quickly found a stick small enough to wedge in. It was a weak lever, but he managed to raise the window just far enough to get his finger under it. With a quick, fluid motion he pushed the panes of glass upward, reached inside and found the stick meant to prop it open, and dusted his hands in satisfaction. Then with a limberness that he owed to years of military discipline and the excellent physical condition that his occupation demanded, the wiry major hoisted himself onto the sill and swung his feet into his son-in-law's study.

"Leaving a house just to burgle it," he muttered to himself as he slid under the shade and looked around. "That's a first."

The room was stuffy, and piled to the rafters with books. There were shelves covered in dusty old texts, a whole rack of scrolls that looked older than the regime, heaps of journals and papers and periodicals. The fire had died away, and most of the light came from the sconces on the wall. They all bore candles: for reasons best left to the imagination, the extraordinarily gifted alchemist didn't want live gas lines in this room.

At first, Grumman didn't see Hawkeye. He was at his desk, lying with his head in his arms, and the heaps of crumpled paper and academic detritus obscured the fact that there was a person in the heavy, high-backed chair. Leslie approached, and tapped him insistently on the shoulder.

"Good evening, Mordred," he said.

The alchemist snorted, a throaty, irritated sound. "Damn you, Bella..." he mumbled, sitting up. Then his squinting eyes frowned and he pushed his overgrown hair away from his face. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

With an amused grin, Leslie picked up the yellow telegram onto which the alchemist had been dribbling. He waved it under his nose. "You received this six days ago, telling you that I had received some unexpected leave and would be coming to visit my granddaughter and frighten the innards out of your local corporal," he said. "I understand that absentmindedness has a certain philosophical charm, but _really_, my boy, you take it to new heights."

"I haven't got time for company," the alchemist muttered.

"Maybe not, but I'm staying for ten days regardless. Don't worry: you won't even notice I'm here." Grumman pushed a pile of crumpled paper onto the floor, and perched on the corner of his son-in-law's desk. "I like Riza's new frocks: very becoming. Did you choose the cloth, or did she?"

Hawkeye glared at him. "That meddling sawbones did it," he snarled. "Self-important woman and her damned charity."

"Ah," said Leslie. "I see. Perhaps she was only trying to save you time. Anyone can see you've been busy with your research."

"Of course I'm busy!" Mordred snapped. "I'm a busy man. I have important work to see to."

"You have two children to see to, as well," Grumman commented mildly. "That must distract a great deal from your work.

"A great deal too much," Mordred agreed sourly. Then his expression changed, the hard lines vanishing as his whole face melted into frantic anxiety. "You came from Central!" he gasped. "Lian! How is Lian?"

"She's well," Leslie soothed, startled by the sudden shift of his son-in-law's emotions. "I visit her regularly, and the doctors tell me she's doing much better."

"But she isn't... she isn't healed."

The flat despair in the man's voice was almost as heartbreaking as Riza's forsaken tears. Grumman wanted to reach out to console him, but he knew that the man would never accept such a gesture. He was too proud, and too firm in his principles, and they were hardly friends: they were two men with nothing in common but their love of the same woman; his passionate and Grumman's paternal.

"No," he said. "She still doesn't always understand that Davell is dead, and on the days when she does, it's all they can do to stop her tears. She isn't well yet, not well enough to come home, anyway."

"How are they treating her? Are they taking care of her?"

"The best care they can," Grumman promised. "They're good people."

"W-what about that procedure, the one they keep billing for. Electro... something... Does it help?"

Grumman's lips tightened, but he fought to keep his face composed. How could he tell this anxious, broken man of the electrotherapy room, with its tilted slab of a bed... the straps to hold the patient in place, with wooden bronze bucklers because iron would burn... the spade-shaped piece of rubber that they shoved between clenched jaws so that the teeth would not shatter with the force of the convulsions... and the muffled screams of pain and terror... the sharp reek of urine and the whine of the generator and the orderly holding him forcibly against the wall... and afterwards, the burns on each temple, and the fetal curve of Lian's slender spine as she wept silently into her pillow... the way she trembled under the gentle touch of his hair while he stroked it as he had when she was just a child...

But the next day, she would be smiling sweetly, and talking of home and her begonias and the pretty new frock that she wanted to sew for Riza's birthday. And for a while, she would almost be herself again, lecturing him about his habits and demanding _why_ he wouldn't shave of his ridiculous moustache.

"It helps," Grumman said. "It's only a temporary fix, but it does help."

The alchemist nodded almost spastically. "Are they feeding her properly? Does she have enough to eat? Hospitals – they don't always feed patients well."

"She's fed well."

"Plenty of fresh vegetables? Meat? Lian loves chicken: the dark meat is her favourite. Are they taking care of her?"

Grumman nodded. "I promise, she's being looked after."

"And the sheets. She can't bear dirty sheets. She can't... can't..."

Then suddenly the man was sobbing wretchedly, his back – thinner than Grumman remembered – twitching with the sundering force of his helplessness and grief. Before Leslie knew what was happening, the alchemist's head was buried against his thigh, and he was stroking the dirty hair and soothing his son-in-law as he had his granddaughter, with soft platitudes and the consolation of gentle physical contact. For a long time they remained thus, as Mordred poured his pain out in a libation from his pale eyes. When at last the fit was past, Grumman helped the exhausted man to his feet, induced him to open the door, and led him upstairs to bed.

As he stripped off Mordred's slippers and rolled him under the covers, Grumman reflected that he would have to wait until tomorrow to address his own anxieties. Ah, well. He still had ten days to get the household back in order.

He reflected wryly as he slipped from the room that this was not quite what he had enlisted for when he had opted for the undertaking of marriage.


	37. A Day Out

**Chapter 36: A Day Out**

What had been meant to be a game of Fuhrer and special soldier that would have included Riza had turned into an in-depth discussion of the wonders of Aquoya. Roy couldn't say exactly why it was that this always seemed to happen, but whenever Maes came over the little girl was invariably pushed to the sidelines. The knowledge filled him with an uneasy guilt, but he didn't know how to change the reality. Maes had so many interesting things that he wanted to do and to say, and though they were great fun for Roy he knew that Riza found them dull. Roy was beginning to think that he couldn't keep them both happy... and after all, Riza was here all year 'round, and Maes would be moving on again in a few weeks.

He could scarcely believe his ears when Major Grumman came out of the house and said; "Why don't you two run off and have some fun? It must be getting a little dull, playing in the yard every day."

Maes jumped upon the opportunity. "You mean it?" he asked eagerly. "Roy can leave the yard?"

"Why not?" Riza's grandfather asked, his eyes twinkling. "Just so long as you're home by nightfall, and don't get into any trouble that I need to hear about."

"What about me?" Riza asked in a quiet, forlorn voice that drove a stake of guilt into Roy's heart. He _wanted_ to include her, he really did, but it was so hard to find ways to do it when Maes was around!

"You and I are going to have a special afternoon just for us," her grandfather said. "We can do anything you want."

Riza thought about this for a moment. "Do you know how to bake cookies?" she asked.

"Do I?" Grumman laughed. "Why, "cookie" is my middle name!" He looked at the boys and nodded his head. "Go on, run along before I change my mind!"

"C'mon!" Maes said, springing to his feet and hurrying across the yard. He scaled the low fence quickly, and stood on the other side, waiting for Roy to join him.

"Where will we go?" the younger boy asked, remembering the one time that the two of them had gone off together after a rough day at school.

"Wherever we want," Maes said blithely. He took a few skipping steps through the long, wild prairie grass, then laughed. "He's a fun old guy," he commented. "Too bad he's not around all the time."

Roy was inclined to agree. In the four days since Riza's grandfather had arrived from Central, the atmosphere in the house had improved enormously. There was an abundance of food in the larder – and someone who knew how to cook it. Riza had somebody to read her stories using funny voices, and tell her what a pretty little girl she was and how much she was growing, and give her the attention that she sorely needed, but that Roy didn't know how to provide. Even Hawkeye-sensei seemed to be in a better mood, on the rare occasions when he surfaced from the study. Roy would have been unabashedly delighted, except that he knew it wouldn't last. Soon, Grumman would return to Central, and life would slide back into its old patterns.

"Are you brooding again?" Maes asked, his eyes narrowing to slits as he studied Roy suspiciously.

"No," Roy said, but not very convincingly.

"You think too much!" accused Maes. "I never met a kid who thought as much as you do. Come on, smile! You're free! They've turned you loose on the world! This is our opportunity to wreak a little havoc!"

Roy balked. "I don't want to get into trouble."

Maes rolled his eyes. "You only get into trouble if you get caught," he said. "And I _never_ get caught!"

Still, Roy hesitated. He didn't want to make mischief. If he did, he might never be allowed to leave the yard again. "I don't think..."

Maes sighed in exasperation. "All right, _fine_!" he said. "Jeepers. It's like trying to play with Gareth. Next thing you'll be telling me to put on a jacket or wash behind my ears." He grinned. "Hey, you've never really seen our place, have you? I mean _really_ seen it. You were there last year after that fight, I guess, but that was hardly a grand tour. Yeah – we'll go to our place!"

Relieved, Roy followed Maes through the village and down to the creek bluffs. After perhaps fifteen minutes they came to the clearing where the tinkers had set up camp. The two caravans were parked next to one another to one side, bricks immobilizing the wheels. The wagon with its tarpaulin-covered load stood on the east side of the clearing, where it provided some shelter for the fire pit and the area that obviously served as the kitchen. There were logs around the fire to sit on, and an overturned apple crate on which was set an assortment of well-used tin dishes. Someone had strung up a clothesline between two trees, and an assortment of work shirts and flour-sack drawers hung from it, drying in the sunshine. On the other side of the clearing, the six big horses and Tiath's pony were tethered on picket lines, grazing docilely. There was a small kiln and a smooth wooden slab on the west side of the clearing, and on the north, practically in the trees, someone had pitched a small canvas tent.

"That's Ben's," Maes said, seeing the direction of Roy's gaze. "He prefers sleeping rough, when he sleeps at all. I'll bet he's off catching some dinner. You've never met Ben, have you?"

Roy wasn't sure. He could never keep the names of all of Maes' siblings straight. All he knew was that Eli was the one who didn't wear glasses, but made them, and who talked about girls all the time.

"This one's mine and Gareth's," Maes told him, vanishing into the smaller caravan. A moment later, his head popped out of the door and he beckoned. "C'mon!"

Roy followed his friend into the gloomy vehicle. It looked almost like a tiny, portable dry-goods shop: there were spools of thread, and bolts of oilcloth, glass bottles nestled in sawdust-filled crates, tools and leather tack hanging from the walls... and every sort of tinware that Roy could imagine. There were pots and kettles, milk pans and bread tins and utensils of every description. There were tin toys, and tin ornaments, and even a tin hat with a place to stick a candle.

Hanging from the ceiling, amid the colanders and baking sheets and ladles, were two hammocks. One was long and narrow, with a wooden dowel at each end and a soft-looking woollen blanket folded on one side. The other was more squat, with all four sides enclosed with a rail, and the net hanging low beneath them. It was full of blankets and cushions and looked more like a nest than a hammock.

"That one's mine," Maes said. "Has been since I was a baby. I'm outgrowing it, though. Slowly," he added a little ruefully. "Dad's promised he'll make me a proper one this winter. I'm going to hold him to it."

"How do you sleep up there?" Roy asked wonderingly. "It's so high."

"How do _you_ sleep without rocking side-to-side all night?" Maes countered. "It all depends on what you're used to."

He slid past his friend and hopped out into the sunlight. "Dad shares the other one with Eli, Tiath and Ira," he said. "It's got a proper bunk: that's for the boys. Dad used to use it when Mam was still alive, but now Tia and Ira share, and Eli and Dad are aloft. That's Eli's kiln," he said, pointing at the little ceramic stove. "He can do just about anything but the biggest glasswares at it. And these are our horses."

Roy hung back as Maes walked fearlessly up to the large animals, slapping one affectionately on the shoulder.

"Atta girl, Dot," he said. "Dot's our oldest. She's been around longer 'n Tiath. Pretty soon we're going to have to get somebody else to pull her weight, and then I'll get to ride her when we're on the go. Here, give her a pet. She won't trample you to death, or anything."

Timidly, Roy stepped forward. The mare snorted a little, and he backed away, but Maes grinned encouragingly, stroking the horse's thick neck.

"She's fine," he said. "See how her ears are straight? Means she's happy. Come on, her nose feels like velvet."

Roy put out a timid hand and touched the side of the horse's face. The large, dark eyes were briefly veiled by silky lids. Then the horse nickered softly and butted his hand.

"She thinks you've got sugar," Maes told him, routing in his pocket and producing a rather linty lump of brown sugar. "Put your hand out, fingers really straight," he instructed. "Otherwise she might nip 'em." He put the piece of sugar on Roy's palm. "There. Hold it out for her."

Roy did, and the horse's rough longue lapped against his palm as she took the treat. He laughed a little. "She's nice," he said.

"You bet," Maes said. "Only girl in the family." He moved on to each of the other horses in turn. "This is Fold. He likes carrots best. And Pol. He's almost as old as Dot. And this is Quoit. And Able. _He's_ got gas really bad. Dad says it's 'cause he eats too much clover. This is Harvey, and this little fellow is Dauntless. He's supposed to be for everyone to use when they need to get somewhere quick, but mainly it's Tia who rides him. Oh, stand back!" he said, as Roy drew too near and the pony's ears went flat. "He's skittish, and he's mighty particular. Didn't I tell you he's Tia's?"

"Where is everybody?" Roy asked, looking around the deserted campsite.

"Eli's in town, seeing patients at the lady doctor's surgery," Maes said. "You know: bringing the joys of spectacles to yet another town. Ben's probably hunting, like I said. Gareth'll be out on a commission. He's a journeyman glover, you see. Could've made master if he'd stayed in one place long enough to get tight with the local guild, but you know how it is."

"Not really," Roy admitted.

Maes chuckled. "That's just an expression," he said. "Anyway, I'll bet Dad and Tiath are picking up supplies. And Ira's probably off getting into trouble. Say, you ever played backgammon? I love it, but Dad's the only one who'll play with me. I'm too good at it, see: it embarrasses the guys to lose to a kid."

_discidium_

"Beginner's luck," Maes said sourly, as Roy moved the last of his chips off of the board. It was the younger boy's fourth consecutive victory. "Or are you sure you're not a career gambler?"

A year ago, Roy would have backed into an anxious apology. Now, he smirked a little. "You're too cocky," he said. "You weren't paying attention."

"Tell me about it!" Maes moaned. "I'm glad we weren't playing for money." He started to load the pieces back into their bag. "Let's do something else, okay?"

"What have we here?"

Roy jumped at the unexpected voice. Maes' father and one of his brothers were standing on the edge of the clearing. The former had a basket in his arms, and the latter bore a hundred-pound flour sack on his shoulders. He moved towards the larger caravan and set it down with a grunt.

"Roy's staying for supper," Maes announced, though that was news to Roy.

"I see," said Absalom, putting down his basket and scratching the crown of his balding head. "And did you lure him away against his better judgement? I understood he wasn't allowed to leave his yard."

Maes wrinkled his nose. "You make him sound like a dog, Dad," he groused. "I did not lure him off, either. His grandpa said he could go so long as he's home by dark!"

"Not _my_ grandpa," Roy said quietly. "He's Riza's."

"Yeah, I forgot," Maes said. "It's weird. You haven't got _any _family?" Roy shook his head. Maes looked as if this concept was entirely foreign to him. "Oh. But he can stay for supper, can't he, Dad?"

"He's more than welcome," said Absalom. He smiled at Roy in a way that was very reminiscent of Maes. "I've already got six sons to feed. One more won't make any difference."

He stepped up into the larger caravan, pausing to look over his shoulder before vanishing inside. "Though I should warn you, it's Tiath's night to cook."

Maes groaned. "Oh, Roy, you're taking your life into your hands!" he warned.

"Aw, shut up, short stuff," the brother said, coming forward to punch Maes' shoulder affectionately. "I'm a better cook than you'll ever be. And anyway, Ben's off trying to scare up some game. I won't poison you tonight."

_discidium_

"And then the farmer said, 'If I'da known that, I wouldn't have ploughed so deep!" Eli finished.

Maes moaned and the men all laughed. Roy wasn't really sure what the point of the joke had been, so he smiled feebly and nibbled at his piece of pan-bread. The Hughes clan was gathered around the campfire, finishing off a meal of prairie chicken cooked with turnips and onions. It was so delicious, and the company so cheerful, that Roy almost forgot that he was sitting three feet away from open flames. Maes' brothers were all just as pleasant and talkative as he was. All except Ben, that was. The eldest brother, who seemed so much older than the others with his sombre eyes and grim demeanour, had stayed by the fire only long enough to fill his plate, and was now sitting at the edge of the clearing, chewing a piece of pitch gum and watching the horses pensively.

"You're a wicked child, and you'll drive me to my grave," Maes' father chuckled, reaching a taper into the fire and lighting his pipe. "Roy, I don't want you to listen to a thing that Eli says. Mr. Hawkeye will be out for my blood for letting you consort with these kinds of unsavoury characters."

"Aw, Dad, give it a rest!" Eli laughed. "You make me sound like a villain. Roy and I are the best of friends, aren't we, kid? How're you making out with your studies?"

"Just fine, thank you, sir," Roy said politely. "I'm reading much better now." Much better than not at all, he thought to himself. "And I'm very good at ciphering."

A general chuckle moved around the circle. "Maybe you can teach Maes a thing or two!" laughed the one who Roy thought was probably Gareth. Anyway, he was older than the other three. "He took to arithmetic like a fish takes to the desert."

"Glub, glub!" Maes agreed.

"Never make a tinker with math skills like that," Tiath put in. "You won't even know when you're being cheated by the tin merchants. We're going to have to farm Baby out for his apprenticeship."

"Don't call me Baby!" Maes yelped in consternation. The men laughed. "And anyway, I don't need to think about an apprenticeship yet."

"Oh, you're getting to that time of life, my little man," his father warned. "This winter you'll have to make up your mind what you want to try. Tinkering, glassgrinding... I expect Gareth wouldn't mind teaching you the basics of his trade, either, though as he's not a master you'd have to look elsewhere for a proper place."

"See?" Eli jibed, poking Gareth in the ribs. "I told you you'd regret it if you didn't apply yourself."

"I couldn't go off and spend ten months flattering a bunch of old glovers!" Gareth laughed. "Who would have looked after you lot?"

"We can look after ourselves, you know," Ira said. "_Mother._"

"Hah! You can't even remember to clean your own teeth!" Gareth said. "And I wouldn't talk too loudly, sir. You still haven't finished _your_ apprenticeship."

Ira shrugged his bony shoulders lazily. "I've got time," he said. "Dad's not going anywhere."

This seemed to be some kind of family joke, because everyone laughed. On the edge of the clearing, Ben spit out his pitch gum with a soft snort, and got to his feet, striding off into the bush. Gareth turned his head to look after him, then frowned.

"What's eating him?" he asked quietly, suddenly sombre.

Ira scowled. "What else ever eats him?" he asked. "Let him stew in his juices, the broody bastard."

Gareth shot a sharp, reproachful look at the younger man. "You shut up and leave him alone. Has he got any money?"

Eli and Tiath exchanged looks of ignorance. "Dunno," Tia said uncomfortably.

"Don't worry," Absalom said, puffing on his pipe and blowing out a billowing smoke ring. "He's most likely gone for a walk."

Gareth, however, was looking intently at Ira. "Have you been needling him again?" he demanded.

"'Course not," said Ira, curling his lip. But Roy noticed that he wasn't making eye contact with his brother.

Gareth noticed it, too. "Damn you, Ira, I've told you a thousand times to leave him alone! If you've gone and set him off again..."

"Why don't you go and lick his wounds for him?" Ira snapped. "You're everyone else's mother now: why not Benjamin's? Maybe 'cause you know he doesn't deserve another one?"

Gareth's fist darted out with lightning quickness, and suddenly Ira's lip was bleeding. With a sharp "Oi!" Eli grabbed Gareth's arm, while Tiath restrained Ira.

"Now, boys," Absalom said serenely, as if such brawls were commonplace. "That's quite enough. Ira, you'll do the washing up, please. Tiath, do be a good lad and see to the horses. Gareth, perhaps you might want to take a little walk yourself. Ben might be glad of the company."

"Like hell he would," Ira grumbled.

Absalom fixed him with a steely green stare. "Stop it," he said. "Or I'll sock you myself. Maes, if Roy has to be home by nightfall, you two had better get going."

"Right," Maes said, a little uncomfortably. He took the plate from Roy's lap and set them both on the ground for Ira to gather up. He held out his hand to the other boy. Roy took it, and followed his friend away from the clearing.

The walk was a quiet one. Maes didn't seem inclined to talk: something was troubling him. They were halfway through town before Roy worked up the courage to ask what was wrong.

"Nothing," Maes said, but his tone wasn't convincing. He sighed. "It's just Ben, he, well... sometimes he goes off and..." He kicked a stone viciously. "Aw, damn it, why'd Ira have to bug him?"

"Bug him about what?" Roy could not help asking.

Maes shrugged miserably. "Just... things. You know? They never could get along. Sorry you had to watch Gare going at him, but Ira had it coming. I mean he's a fun guy and everything, but I just wish he'd leave Ben alone!"

Sensing that this was something that his friend didn't really want to discuss, Roy let the silence descend again. The town disappeared behind them, and the Hawkeye house rose up ahead.

"Thanks," Roy said. "I had a lot of fun."

Maes forced a grin. "Sure thing!" he said. "We'll have to do it again." He held out his fist.

Roy stared at it, not sure what to do. This time, when Maes smiled the expression was genuine. "Make a fist," he said. Roy obeyed. Maes knocked his against it with a soft _pam!_

"G'night," he said. "See you tomorrow."

Roy nodded. "G'night." Then he turned and went into the house, leaving Maes alone in the crimson glow of the sunset.


	38. Negotiated Settlement

**Chapter 37: Negotiated Settlement**

In the battlefield, Major Grumman had heard the screams of soldiers as their innards were blown away by grapeshot and shrapnel. He had heard the cries of the dying as they lay in ditches, writhing in agony. He had listened to the hellish wails of men as field doctors amputated whole limbs without the benefit of anesthetic or morphia. He had heard the bitter, mourning sobs of wives and daughters and lovers who had to be told that their menfolk would never return from the debatable border-lands to which they had been sent. He was no stranger to screams, but the keening wail of terror that woke him in the middle of the night stopped his heart and chilled him to the core.

Riza was screaming.

Grumman rolled off of the narrow sofa, running a hand through his receding hair as he bolted for the stairs. He stumbled a little in the dark, catching himself against the banister and hastening up past the stair that went off like a gunshot in his wake to his granddaughter's room. The door was ajar, and he came in, groping for the gas. The light flared up, momentarily blinding him. As his vision returned, he could see Roy, pale and distraught, trying vainly to comfort the little girl, whose back was straight as a poker, her limbs rigid as she shook with terrified sobs.

Roy looked fearfully at Grumman, and then rushed forward. "She's having a dream," he said desperately. "She won't wake up!"

"All right, son, all right," Grumman soothed, his heart resuming its regular rhythm again. He squeezed Roy's arm reassuringly, and moved past him to pick up Riza. She struggled against him, moaning something incoherent that was cut off as she screamed again. Grumman jiggled her gently, walking over to the window.

"Ssh, Riza, baby," he said. "Time to wake up. It's just a bad dream."

She didn't respond. Whatever the horror was, it had an iron grip upon her. Grumman patted her back, firmly but soothingly. "Riza," he called softly. "Riiiiza."

She writhed a little, trying once again to wriggle out of his grasp. Grumman adjusted his hold and kept rocking from side to side. "Riza, my girl. Wake up," he said in a gentle singsong.

There were footsteps in the hall, and Mordred came into the room, his hair in disarray and his nightshirt gaping at the neck. As he entered the room, Roy Mustang, who had been standing by the bed and watching Grumman anxiously, let out a yelp of terror.

"No!" he shouted. "No! Leave her alone!"

To Grumman's astonishment, the thin little boy threw himself at Mordred, trying with all his might to drive the alchemist back out of the room. Mordred seemed startled at first, but then he frowned and picked the boy up, gripping him under his arms. Roy panicked, fighting against the alchemist and trying to slip loose. Riza was still sobbing, but now her little hands clutched the front of Grumman's pyjama shirt, and she was rubbing her forehead against his neck.

"Calm down, boy. Calm _down_!" Mordred was saying, trying to grapple with the struggling child. Finally he dealt him a firm slap on the rump that startled him into silence. "Settle down," Mordred repeated. "She's waking up: look."

He turned the boy in his arms, pointing at Riza, who was sniffling softly against Grumman's shoulder. The soldier stroked her short, silken hair. "That's my sweetpea," he said. "You had a bad dream, didn't you, darling?"

Riza nodded as best she could with her face pressed against him. Grumman patted her back consolingly.

"That's my brave little lady," he said. "There, now. It's all over. You're safe now."

"Brave? She's a little coward: scared of the boogieman," Mordred said, his mouth twisting into something that almost looked like a sneer.

"Nonsense," Grumman said firmly. "She's a very brave girl: quite the bravest I know. There, sweetpea. Grandfather's got you." He frowned at his son-in-law. "Put the boy down, Mordred. You're frightening him."

The alchemist obeyed, and Roy stumbled across the room to stand as near to the major as he dared. Hesitantly, he reached up and touched Riza's leg. The little girl turned her head to see who was there, and she reached down to plant her hand on the crown of Roy's head. Then she rubbed her chin against Grumman's arm and sniffled stoically.

"Good girl," Grumman said. "Mordred, why don't you go downstairs and fix us both a pot of tea. I'll get the children settled back to bed, and then you and I can have a little talk."

"There isn't any tea," Mordred said sourly.

"Yes, there is. I bought two pounds of black the other day," Grumman contradicted. "Now run along and brew us some."

The alchemist looked ready to argue, but he went nonetheless. Grumman turned the gas low, so that the room was bathed in a faint orange light. Then he adjusted his hold on Riza.

"Would you like me to tuck you in?" he asked Roy.

The boy shook his head. "I usually stay with her," he said. "'Til she gets back to sleep."

Grumman kept his face a careful mask of neutrality. "No need for that tonight," he said. "I'll stay with Riza. You head back to bed and get some rest for yourself. You're a stout-hearted little man, but you need your sleep. All right?"

"Yes, sir," Roy said. He squeezed Riza's bare foot affectionately. "G'night."

"Night," Riza sniffed softly. Then a silent, sobbing inhalation shook her and she gripped Grumman's shirt all the more tightly.

"Don't worry," Grumman said, smiling reassuringly at the boy. "I'll take good care of her for you."

Roy left, but there was still an iota of hesitation in his retreat. Left alone with his granddaughter, Grumman eased himself onto the bed, curling her legs to accommodate his as he eased her from his shoulder to his lap and wrapped his arms snugly around her.

"That's my brave girl," he soothed, rocking back and forth as he petted her hair. "You had quite the bad dream."

Riza nodded, sniffling.

"Do you want to tell Grandfather about it?" Grumman offered.

She shook her head. Poor little baby: she probably didn't even want to think about it.

"Shall I sing you a song?" he asked.

A tiny nod. Grumman hugged her closer, so that he could feel the heat of her breath through the light cotton of his pyjama shirt. He cleared his throat and launched into a song that had been one of Lian's favourites as a child. It had a gentle, soothing melody, and he rocked Riza in time to it.

"_Hush-a-bye, don't you cry. Go to sleep, my little lady. When you wake, you shall have... All the pretty little horses."_

The tension in Riza's limbs began to leech away, and her frantic grip on his clothing eased a little.

"_Black and bay, dappled and grey, Coach and six-a little horses. When you wake, you shall have... All the pretty little horses."_

Her eyelids were drifting low over her carmine pupils. Grumman stroked her velvety-soft cheek, wicking away her tears.

"_Way down yonder, down in the meadow, There's a poor little lamb-y. The bees and the butterflies Buzzing round her eyes. Poor little thing cries 'Maaa-ammy'."_

Riza made a soft keening sound deep in her throat, her lips moving in a small sucking motion before falling still. She was asleep. Grumman slowed his rocking as he finished the lullaby.

"_Hush-a-bye. Don't you cry. Go to sleep, my little lady. When you wake, you shall have... All the pretty little horses."_

Humming the melody softly, he rose, turning so that he could lie her down. He smoothed her pillow, stroking her hair as he drew first the sheet, then the bedclothes up over her. Riza sighed a little and murmured something that he couldn't hear. Grumman waited, ready to comfort her if she woke from her tenuous slumber. When she did not move, he bent over her and kissed the delicate, curved shell of her ear.

"_All the pretty little horses_," he sang softly as he backed out of the room, drawing the door nearly closed behind him. Then he moved to the room that had been Davell's.

"Knock, knock," he said softly. "Are you still awake?"

"Yes," a low, anxious voice replied. After the semidarkness of Riza's room, the deep black of this one took a moment to get used to. Roy was sitting up in bed, his bony knees hugged to his chest. Grumman came further into the room.

"I thought you might be," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "It must have frightened you to hear Riza scream like that."

"N-no, sir," the boy said, making a noble attempt at a fib. "Not much anymore, sir," he amended, when even to his ears the lie sounded feeble.

"Not much anymore," Grumman echoed, nodding sagaciously. "I suppose that means that this has happened before?"

"Yes, sir," Roy whispered, sounding half ashamed.

"How often?"

"Ev—every couple of nights." Roy hid his face in his hands. "I try to calm her down, sir," he confessed helplessly.

"I'm sure you do a fine job," Grumman told him. "It looks to me like you take very good care of her. I don't think any big brother could do half as well as you do."

The boy raised his head. "Really?" he said tremulously. "But I can't cook or wash the clothes or—"

Grumman laughed a little, almost bitterly. "Those aren't things that you _should _have to do," he said. Though really, he thought, comforting her after her night terrors wasn't really the duty of a child, either. "You're a good boy, Roy, and I'm proud of you."

"Proud?" the boy breathed. "Of _me_?"

"Yes, indeed," Grumman said. "Now, lie down and get some rest. Would you like me to sing to you?"

There was a hesitant silence. "No," the boy said at last. "Hawkeye-sensei will be done making the tea by now."

Grumman stroked the boy's ebony hair. "Sleep well," he said.

"Thank you, sir," Roy murmured. He sounded as if he were already drifting towards slumber.

Grumman tucked him in and slipped from the room. He tried to count the steps, but he was off by one: the step below the one that he skipped was the bad one, and he flinched as the sharp sound rang out.

In the kitchen, Mordred was pouring himself a mug of tea. He had turned up the gas just enough to let himself see what he was doing, and the kitchen was bathed in an eerie half-light.

"You're an officer and a gentleman, father-in-law," Mordred said, inhaling deeply before drawing in a long draught of tea. He rolled it around his mouth before swallowing with a blissful sigh. "Haven't tasted that in a long time."

"So I gathered," Grumman said. "Riza tells me that tea is too 'spensive', and you and I both know that the doctor didn't buy them those clothes just to save you the trouble of going shopping. How short of money are you?"

Mordred glared at him. "I'm not short of money," he said sourly. "Just because I choose to run a thrifty household doesn't mean—"

"You can lie to your friends if you want," Grumman interjected sharply. "Hell, you can even lie to the children. But don't you dare lie to me, young man. I've always appreciated your honesty, and I'm not going to let you skirt the issue now. How short of money are you?"

"I'm telling you, I'm just fine," Mordred said stubbornly. "If I weren't, don't you think the children would know?"

"I think they _do_ know, and they're either too ashamed or too frightened to tell me," Grumman said. "That boy is obviously terrified of you."

"Terrified? He attacked me! I thought he was growing into a decent, well-behaved child, but if he's going fly off in a rage like that, maybe I'm wrong." Mordred took another mouthful of the hot beverage.

"He didn't attack you because he was angry: he was terrified. He thought you were going to do something to Riza." Grumman scrutinized the alchemist's face closely, watching his reaction.

Mordred scoffed. "That's absurd. Why would I do anything to Riza? She's my own daughter."

"True," Leslie said. "But you have been under a great deal of stress lately, so perhaps your temper is wearing a little thin, and you're taking it out on them."

"Don't be ridiculous," Mordred growled. "That's a leap of logic at best."

"Maybe. What isn't a leap of logic is the state your larder was in. You haven't been keeping it properly stocked, which I assume is why Riza's looking so thin. If you aren't feeding the children properly because you're lazy, then that's something we need to address," said Grumman. "If you aren't feeding them properly because you can't afford to, then the solution is simple."

"I'm not going to let them move her!" Mordred snapped. "You said so yourself: the common wing of that damned asylum is a miserable place!"

"That wasn't what I was about to suggest," Grumman said. "Though the real Lian – the healthy Lian – would rather have put up with a few inconveniences herself than know that her children were going hungry to pay for her luxury."

Mordred set down his mug with unnecessary force. "Roy Mustang isn't her child," he groused.

"Maybe not," Grumman allowed. "Riza, however, is. And you haven't been taking proper care of her. Maybe you've tried your best: that I can't say. In all honesty, though, Mordred, if this is your best then it isn't good enough."

"Damn you, you live six hundred miles away! Who the hell are you to tell me how to run my household?" Mordred cried.

"Yes, I live six hundred miles away," said the soldier; "but I care very much what goes on in this house. I'm worried about Lian, I'm worried about Riza and Roy, and I'm worried about you. These last months have been hard on everyone, and I'm sorry that I wasn't here to help. I'm sorry that I can't stay here, but I can't. I'm going back to Central in three days' time, and when I go I need to know that you have the money and the patience to care for the children properly."

Mordred looked almost ready to explode with rage, but then suddenly his face crumpled and he hung his head, defeated. "I don't know what to do," he confessed.

"Let me pay for Lian's care," Grumman suggested. "She's my daughter, and I'm the one who visits her. I'd be proud to do it."

Mordred shook his head. "She's my wife," he said brokenly. "I took a vow to stand with her and provide for her. It's my duty to take care of her, not yours."

Grumman understood. It was a matter of pride, and to men like Mordred their pride was their most important possession. Any suggestion of a sum to provide for Riza would be equally distasteful. For what was not the first time tonight, Grumman was suddenly grateful for the presence of the orphaned runaway in the Hawkeye house.

"What about the boy?" he asked.

"What about him?" Mordred grumbled.

"Would you let me take him?" Grumman asked.

Mordred frowned blankly at him. "What? You can't haul him off to Central! He's needed here."

"Is he?" Grumman asked, feigning surprise. "I had the impression that he was nothing more than another mouth to feed."

Mordred cast his eyes away, awkwardly. "He's useful," he said. "He's tending the garden, isn't he?"

"And doing a fine job," Grumman agreed. "Well, then, could I at least contribute to his upkeep? I've taken a liking to him, and I want to do something to help in the quest to transform him into a useful member of society. A monthly stipend for his care, maybe, to offset the added expense of a third member of the household?"

Mordred's eyes narrowed. "What kind of stipend?" he asked.

"I thought forty thousand _sens_ a month," Grumman said.

The alchemist wasn't fooled. "That's exactly what Lian's board costs. The boy isn't worth forty thousand _sens_ a month."

"Ten thousand, then," Grumman offered. "Please, Mordred. As a favour to me, take it."

"No." Mordred scowled at his tea. "I don't need your money."

This was a lie, and both men knew it. Mordred _did_ need money, and desperately. "Seven thousand?" Grumman tried.

"Seven thousand... it would help," Mordred said softly. "Riza needs new shoes." He sighed. "Very well. _If it pleases you_, you can contribute to the boy's upkeep and education. Seven thousand _sens_ a month."

Grumman smiled. "Agreed. Thank you, Hawkeye-sensei."

Mordred grunted. "Don't patronize me. Leave me alone with what's left of my dignity."

"There's no shame in this," Leslie said. "There is no beholden between members of a family, and like it or not, that's what we are. You married my daughter, so you're saddled with me as well, and I can be just as stubborn as you are." He stood up. "Good night, Mordred. We'll talk again tomorrow."

He left the room, standing in the hallway for a long moment, twisting his moustache pensively. That was one more problem addressed, but he didn't find it comforting. The financial problems were but one drop in the bucket, and not the largest drop. The extra money might help alleviate some of the alchemist's worries – but if he _was_ being violent with the children (and Grumman admittedly had no hard proof that he was) it would make no significant difference to their quality of life.

Still, it was something, and with his emergency leave rapidly running out, it might be all that the major could accomplish on this visit.


	39. Irresistible Temptation

**Chapter 38: Irresistible Temptation**

Roy wished that Riza's grandfather could have stayed forever. He had been so glad of Major Grumman's pleasant presence, to say nothing of the care he gave to Riza and the lovely meals he cooked – never even once forgetting when it was time to eat. While he had been staying in the house, Hawkeye-sensei had been able to focus on his research, and still Riza had had somebody to take care of her, lifting that onerous worry from Roy's shoulders. When Grumman's visit came to an end, Riza had wept and begged him to stay, and her tears had hurt Roy terribly; not only because he hated to see Riza distressed, but because he knew that part of her dismay at her grandfather's departure was due to the knowledge that she would be left in the inept hands of her playmate after the adult was gone.

Hawkeye-sensei seemed in a better mood these days, and it was only occasionally that the children would find the door to his study locked fast against them. He resumed Roy's lessons, and spent a little time each week working with Riza on the rudiments of reading and writing. Though Roy was still responsible for feeding the little girl breakfast every morning, and dinner on most days, too, supper was more often than not provided by the alchemist. The fare had improved suddenly, too: there was once again plenty of milk, and meat for supper, and tea for Hawkeye-sensei. Roy was once again forgetting what it felt like to have a small, gnawing monster in his belly, grumbling softly all day and growling at night. More importantly, Riza was getting enough to eat again, and the pinched look disappeared from her face.

The only thing that didn't improve as a result of the officer's visit was Riza's night terrors. She still woke up every couple of nights, shrieking and shaking and sobbing with debilitating fright as her imagination held her hostage, refusing to release her into reality.

Roy now slept with Davell's door open so that he could be sure to be the first one to hear Riza if she awakened. Lately, Hawkeye-sensei had taken to ignoring the child's panicked screams. That suited Roy just fine, but he was still afraid that some night the alchemist would lose his patience again, and come up to attack the helpless little girl. He still didn't know how to comfort Riza while she was caught in the throes of the nightmares, but at least he could stand guard over her until she finally woke up, and then soothe her back to sleep again.

So two weeks passed, and the summer crept towards its zenith. It was on a Saturday afternoon that the next noteworthy event of the year took place.

Roy had just finished planting a second crop of radishes, which grew much faster than the other vegetables. Maes, who was busy on Saturday mornings helping his father and brothers at the village market, had turned up shortly after dinner with a grin on his face and three sweet pears tucked into the crook of his arm. Riza sat at her tree stump table, eating hers with fastidious care and watching the two boys with sombre eyes as they sat on the grass, slurping at the juicy fruit and talking contentedly.

"I want to see the west someday," Maes was saying. "I hear West City's really something to see. The land's different out there, too: pine forests and hills and things. Don't you want to travel?"

"Not really," Roy admitted. He just wanted to stay where he was. "Don't you want to live in a house?"

"Cook on a stove? Sleep in a bed? Look out the door and see the same thing every morning for the rest of my life? No thank you!" Maes laughed. "I'd be bored to tears. I want to travel to new, exciting places and see things nobody's ever seen before. Sure, tinkering's all right, but it's the same towns every year, the same people – just older and stingier than last time. I want to go east and see the desert and maybe Xing, too, and I want to go west and see the forests, and someday I'll go north, too, and see the Briggs Mountains and sleep in a snow-hut and eat raw fish for breakfast."

"Raw fish taste terrible," Roy said, scrunching up his nose.

"How do you know? Ever tried 'em?" Maes challenged.

"Yes," Roy admitted. He thought sometimes that he had tried to eat just about anything and everything you could imagine. He could almost taste the horrible, pungent piece of trout flesh that he had scavenged from a fishmonger's bucket once in a big town somewhere far away. With a shudder, he took another nectar-sweet bite of the pear.

"Well, I'll bet they'd taste good frozen solid," Maes said. "Anyway, I'd like to try it. It'd be fun to say that I had."

"But isn't travelling lonesome?" Roy queried. He remembered the days before he lived in a house as horrible, lonely times full of uncertainty and heartache.

Maes threw back his head with a hearty guffaw. "With the crowd I travel with? Never!" he chuckled. "'Course, the only trouble is leaving friends behind. Well, _friend_. If you could come with, it'd be just perfect!"

"I couldn't do that," Roy said sombrely. "Riza needs me here... and who would look after the garden?"

"Let the weeds have the garden!" Maes said heartlessly, gesturing as if to wave away the neat rows of vegetables that were basking in the sunlight. "And Riza could come, too. She could use my hammock, and then Dad'd _have_ to make me a new one!"

"No!" Riza cried, scandalized. "I have to stay here! When my momma comes home, she won't know where to find me if I go away!"

Maes smiled at her. "Don't worry, I'm just being silly," he said kindly. "I promise I won't steal you away. We're tinkers, not fortune-tellers. _They're_ the ones who steal babies," he whispered in an aside that Roy hoped Riza couldn't hear. She had enough worries with malicious ducks and monsters made of fire and whatever else she dreamt about without fretting over fortune-tellers who stole children.

Maes swallowed the last of his pear, tossed the stem away into the overgrown grass, and licked his fingers. "Dad's getting the wanderlust in his eyes again," he said regretfully. "I'd bet we'll be moving on before the end of the month. I tried to convince him we should stay 'til the end of the summer term so I can finish my school year, but I don't think he bought it."

"Is Miss Strueby still teaching?" Roy asked.

"Still _not _teaching, y'mean?" Maes corrected. "Yeah. Personally, I think she'll be teaching forever. Can't see her catching a husband." He yawned and flopped onto his back, cupping his hands behind his head and staring up at the cottony clouds. "Wonder if they'll make me take autumn term," he mused. "I'm practically done school, you know. Gareth's determined that I'm going to finish, but I dunno how Dad feels about... what's that?"

Roy followed Maes' finger into the thick foliage of the elm that stood in the corner of the yard. He couldn't see anything unusual. "What's what?"

"That. That wooden thing."

"That's called a tree," Riza said in a condescending voice, frowning over the top of her pear.

"Yeah, I know it's a tree, but what's that _in_ the tree?" Maes clarified.

Whatever it was, Roy couldn't see it. He leaned down, looking upward in an approximation of his friend's vantage point. Now he could see the planks and supports that were the underbelly of Davell's treehouse.

"Oh," he said. "You can't get up there."

"It looks like a treehouse," Maes said, his pale green eyes alight with interest. He got to his feet and walked over to the elm, staring up into the branches.

"It's Davell's," Riza admonished. "It's dangerous."

"The ladder's gone, anyway," agreed Roy, pointing to the places where the lower rungs had been removed.

"Not the whole ladder," Maes said. He frowned thoughtfully, head cocked to one side, then reached up for the lowest of the remaining planks of wood. It was just above his eye level. "I wonder..." he said. "C'mere."

"Why?" Roy said warily, but he stepped forward.

Maes knelt down. "Climb up onto my shoulders, and I'll boost you up," he said.

Roy shook his head. "Riza says it's dangerous."

"Aw, what does Riza know? She's four!" Maes said dismissively. "Come on: don't you want to see what's up there? Aren't you a little bit curious?"

"I don't want to," Roy said, but that wasn't entirely true. Now that Maes had put the idea into his head he _was_ curious as to what was up there.

"Sure you do," Maes argued. He curled his back. "Come on, stand on my shoulders."

Roy climbed onto Maes' back. Knees trembling a little, he gripped the trunk of the tree and planted one bare foot on each of the older boys' shoulders. Maes took hold of his ankles. "Ready?" he asked. "One, two, three – hup!"

He stood, and Roy rose with him. Now the lowest rung was just above his foot. He hesitated.

"Hurry up!" Maes grunted. "You're heavier than you look!"

Hastily, Roy moved to the ladder. There was a moment of pure terror as Maes stepped away, but then instinct kicked in and he climbed upward, crawling onto the plank floor.

"Great!" Maes cheered from below. "Now, lemme see if I can..."

There was a sound of scrabbling feet, and a couple of strained exhalations, then a triumphant cackle. The next thing Roy knew, his friend's spectacled eyes were peering at him over the edge of the treehouse. Then Maes finished the climb and sat down with a satisfied sigh.

"Knew I could do it!" he said smugly. He looked around. "Nice place," he commented.

The treehouse was roughly square, supported by the three heaviest limbs of the venerable tree. The north and west sides had a four-foot-high wall, which supported a flat roof that would offer some shelter from the rain or the wind. The other two sides had once been edged with a rail three feet above the platform, but the southern one was broken, as if something heavy had crashed through it. There were two apple crates in the northwest corner, turned on their sides to serve as shelves.

"Hey! _Hey_!" an irate voice called from below. Roy crept near the edge and peered over it. Riza stood by the foot of the trunk, looking up with her hands on her hips. "I want to come up, too!" she said.

Maes moved in next to Roy. "You're too small," he said.

"You boosted Roy!" Riza argued. "Come down here and boost _me_, too!"

Maes shook his head. "You'd fall," he said. "You're too little to climb trees."

"I want to come up!" Riza protested. "Roy, let me come up!"

"Maybe she could ride piggyback?" Roy suggested timidly.

"Are you crazy?" Maes snorted. "I could only just get up by myself: I can't carry a little girl, too!" He turned back to Riza and called down, "Sorry, kid. You'll have to wait 'til you're older!"

Riza's imperious expression wavered. "Roy?" she said forlornly. "I want to play, too..."

Roy felt a twisting serpent of guilt in his stomach. "You can't," he said. "I'm sorry..."

Her eyes narrowed and her jaw set itself into a knot of obstinate anger. "Fine!" she said stoutly. "Fine! I don't want to play up there, anyways. It's _Davell's_ treehouse, and it's _dangerous!_"

With an indignant huff, she marched out of sight. Roy slunk away from the edge, feeling vaguely sick. He wasn't sure if it was remorse for hurting Riza's feelings, or terror at being so far off the ground. They had to be nine or ten feet up, and he didn't feel safe at all.

"Hey, look!" Maes said, scooting on his bottom towards the apple crates. He picked up a wooden box with a sailboat carved on the lid, and opened it. It was filled with assorted treasures: snail shells, smooth black pebbles, a rusty ball bearing, a queen from a chess set, five knucklebones, string, and a stick shaped like a "Y" with a piece of rubber cord tied to it.

"Nice!" Maes said, lifting out the last object.

"What is it?" asked Roy.

"A slingshot, of course!" Maes told him. He picked up one of the stones, and set it against the rubber. Then he extended his arm, aiming upward into the tree, and fired. The stone sailed through the dense canopy... and there was a yelp from below.

Maes grimaced. "Damn. I hope I didn't hit her. Hey, _chibi? _You okay?"

"Your rock smushed my sandcastle!" Riza exclaimed angrily from somewhere below. "I'm going inside!"

Maes flinched a little and shrugged apologetically. "It's a good slingshot," he said. "Wonder where he found the rubber."

Roy didn't know. He really wanted to get out of here: it was too high up and he was uncomfortable. He didn't like heights, and anyway he wanted to go and tell Riza that he was sorry... but Maes didn't look ready to leave any time soon.

_discidium_

Mordred heard the back door slam shut, and indignant footsteps moved towards his study door. He had left it ajar so that he could enjoy a cross-breeze, for the room was stuffy in the summer heat. Riza pushed it open and came into the room, skirting broadly around him and moving towards the cold hearth, where the slate and pencil were sitting. She sat down with an angry grunt and started to write her name on the slate.

Curious, Mordred turned in his chair. "What's the matter?" he asked.

Riza stiffened, looking warily up at him. Mordred felt a pang of annoyance. True, he didn't ordinarily question the children if they came in quietly to work on their studies, but that was no reason for her to be afraid. Frowning, he repeated the question.

"I don't like it outside," Riza whispered. Her lower lip quivered and her eyes shot towards the door, as if she was regretting her choice to come in here.

"Why not?" Mordred asked. Now the annoyance was directed elsewhere. Roy knew that one of the conditions for him having his ragamuffin friend over to play was that Riza should not be driven out of her yard. "Are the boys playing roughly?"

Riza shook her head and inched further away from him, the slate pencil still in her hand.

"Well, what are they doing?"

"They won't let me come up," Riza exclaimed, her indignation and annoyance breaking free of her absurd apprehension. "They're up in Davell's treehouse and they say I'm too little! I'm _not_ little! I'm _not!_"

Mordred might have spared a moment to feel sorry for the little girl, whose eyes were brimming with angry tears, had he not heard so clearly what she had said. A forgotten fear closed on his heart. "The treehouse?" he breathed. "They're in the treehouse?"

Riza nodded frantically, made nervous again by the strained quality of the alchemist's voice. Mordred got to his feet and ran from the room, only dimly aware of the anxious child hurrying after him.

_discidium_

"Uh-oh," Maes said ruefully as the sound of the back door opening rang out across the yard.

Roy crept towards the edge of the platform. Through the leaves below, he could see Hawkeye-sensei striding towards the tree, Riza in his wake. She no longer looked angry, but frightened... and the alchemist was obviously furious.

"Boys!" he shouted. "Get down here at once!"

"Ah..." Maes grinned sheepishly. "I think maybe we're in trouble," he said.

Roy couldn't help it. He started to shake, and had to screw his eyes tightly closed to prevent frightened tears from falling. Just when everything had been going so well, just when things had started to quiet down, and the alchemist had started to be nice and quiet and disinterested again... why, oh, why did everything have to go wrong again? He didn't want to be in trouble. He didn't want to be punished.

"Hey, hey, settle down," Maes said, taken aback by the younger boy's distress. "Don't worry. Here's the plan. We'll wait up here 'til nightfall, and then we'll climb down and run off!"

Roy could only stare at him in disbelief. That was the worst plan he had ever heard! Disobedience would only make the punishment worse, and running away would make Hawkeye-sensei angry!

"Roy Mustang, I said get down here at once!" the alchemist ordered.

Roy hugged his knees to his chest and rocked a little. He sounded so _angry_! His nerves, already on edge with the anxiety borne of the unsteady height at which he was perched, were unable to deal with this fresh fear. He couldn't think. He couldn't move.

"Uh, I think he's too scared to climb down, sir," Maes called. "Sorry?"

There was a muttered oath from below, and Roy could hear Hawkeye-sensei moving across the grass. Maes craned his neck to follow the adult's progress.

"What's he doing?" he asked. "He's kneeling down. Is he gonna try and—"

There was a blinding flash of light below, and Maes let out a startled yelp as a column of hedge shot out around the tree, forming a stepladder. Hawkeye-sensei rounded the trunk and stepped onto it, using it as leverage so that he could mount the ladder with ease.

"Oh, damn, he's coming up!" Maes cried. "Run now, not later!"

Then he bolted for the eastern side of the platform, tucked his knees in towards his chest, and launched off of the side of the treehouse. There was a startled cry from Hawkeye-sensei, and Riza screamed as Maes careened off and vanished into the hedge with an enormous _crash_!

Forgetting his fear, Roy scrambled to the edge, looking after his friend. Had he been killed?

There was a rustling from the ruined bushes, and Maes rolled out the other side, into the thick prairie grass beyond the yard. His nose was bleeding, his shirt had been badly torn by the branches, and his glasses were hanging oddly off of one ear, the left lens cracked and the right lens gone. Otherwise he looked largely unscathed, however and he was grinning.

"Roy?" he called. "You coming?"

Hawkeye-sensei, who was halfway up the ladder, turned a glare like white-hot fire on the tinker's son. "Get out of here!" He roared, looking half-crazed in his rage. "Go away and never come back, you little hellion! You good-for-nothing tinker's brat! I'll take the skin off your back if you come back here again!"

Maes' eyes went wide, and he ran away across the field. Roy stared after him, shell-shocked and unable to move until a firm hand closed on his ankle. He turned to see Hawkeye-sensei reaching across the platform with a formidable scowl on his face.

"Come here," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous.

Roy obeyed, unable to resist. The alchemist held him against his hip with one hand while he used the other to climb down. Riza was watching, her carmine eyes enormous.

"P-Papa?" she said timidly, reaching a little hand to pluck at the leg of his trousers.

Hawkeye-sensei didn't seem to hear her. He set Roy down roughly, and took him by the arm. "Inside," he snapped, dragging the boy towards the house. Roy cast a single, desperate look over his shoulder as he trotted to keep up with the man's long strides. Why had Maes run? It wasn't like his friend just to leave him like that, to face the consequences alone. Why did he run away?

Frightened and betrayed, Roy let the alchemist push him through the back door into the lean-to. The adult shoved Roy forward, and he fell onto the kitchen floor, thrusting out his hands to catch himself. The adult slammed the door closed, and then drew the bolt, locking it so that Riza could not follow them. Roy tried to scuttle away, but the table blocked his escape. He closed his eyes and steeled himself as the angry man descended upon him.


	40. A Child's Purgatory

**Chapter 40: A Child's Purgatory**

Maes recognized that he had a problem the moment he entered the woods near the creek. Running full-tilt across the plains had been easy enough, for he had his father's keen sense of direction and there was nothing to bump into. Under the trees, it was a different story. Everything was an uncertain blur of brown and green and blinding white light. Maes tried to grope his way forward, but he couldn't keep a straight path. After a minute he was disoriented and starting to feel a little dizzy.

He stopped, leaning against a tree, and pulled his broken glasses – broken glasses, damn it, Eli was going to _murder_ him! – out of the breast pocket of his shirt. It took him a moment to figure out how they were supposed to be oriented in his hands, and then another minute to bend the frames back into some semblance of the original shape. Then he slid them onto his nose.

That was a little better. Though his right eye still saw nothing but blotchy chaos, his left had a clear, if fractured, picture of his surroundings. The trouble, then, was that he had little or no depth perception, and as he progressed, he was whacked in the face by branches that he could have sworn were three feet away.

He was still rather disoriented, and the kalediscope of earth tones in his right eye wasn't helping. He covered it with his fingertips, which improved things a little, and continued his clumsy passage through the trees.

There was whistling of swift motion, and a soft _thwok!_ Maes froze, recognizing the sounds and looking for the source. There, maybe six, maybe eight feet away, a gleaming push knife with the T-shaped handle wrapped in thin black leather was embedded in the bole of a tree.

"Ben!" he yelped. "That could've taken my head off!"

The eldest of the brothers Hughes stepped out from behind an ash tree. "I was aiming for the squirrel," he said, apparently unfazed.

"Yeah, but—" Maes shook his head. "I should know better than to come out of nowhere, I guess."

Ben shrugged, coming forward to retrieve his knife. He ran his thumb along the razor-sharp blade, then reached into his pocket for his whetstone. He spit on it, and then rasped the edge of the knife lovingly against it. He looked Maes up and down.

"What happened?" he asked in his usual monotone. "Another fight?"

"No, I... I jumped out of a treehouse," Maes said, a little sheepishly. Then the reason for his retreat came flooding back. "I got Roy into trouble! I think the alchemist's gonna beat him, and you gotta come with me to explain!"

Ben studied his younger brother thoughtfully. Maes could not help bristling with impatience. He understood that Ben was slow to action, preferring to thoroughly weigh any question before committing himself. Gareth said Ben used to be impulsive and decisive, never scared to do what had to be done, never hesitating for sober second thought, but Maes had never seen any evidence of such impetuosity.

"Why didn't you stay and explain it yourself?" Benjamin said at last.

"He told me to get going," Maes said. "He looked mad enough to kill, and I thought I'd better get reinforcemen – you don't think he'd _kill_ Roy, do you?" he gasped, suddenly dismayed.

Any of his other brothers would have laughed at him for that remark, but Benjamin only stroked his thin, wispy beard and slipped his push knife into his belt with the others. "In general, people don't kill their children," he said.

"But Roy's not his kid!" Maes cried. "He just lives there, and... dammit, I'd better go back."

He turned to take off, but in his haste, his ruined glasses slipped from his nose. There was a noise as the remaining lens shattered, and then a long silence – Maes frozen with dismay and Benjamin pensively quiet.

"Doesn't look like you'll be going anywhere 'til Eli can fit you up with new specs," the hunter commented dryly. He took Maes' arm. "Come on, I'll take you back to camp. We'll just have to do without fresh game tonight."

"B-but..." Maes stammered. He was helpless without his glasses and he knew it, but someone had to help Roy. "I have to go back and explain. It was all my fault."

"You can explain when you can see again," Ben told him. "Don't worry. Your friend will be fine."

"But he was _really _mad..." Maes protested feebly, stumbling a little as Ben started to lead him through the forest.

"Not as mad as Eli will be when he sees you've ruined another pair of glasses," Ben said.

Maes reflected in astonishment that that almost sounded like a joke. Coming from Ben, it was almost more disconcerting than comforting, but he recognized the intention. Forcing himself to calm down, he closed his eyes against the dizzying conglomeration of indistinct shapes and let his brother guide him forward.

_discidium_

Riza saw a flash of blue light in Roy's window, and shivered. Papa was doing alchemy. Why was he doing alchemy in Roy's room? She shivered a little. It was lonesome out here, with the ruined hedge and the strange stairs against the tree, but the door was locked and she couldn't get into the house. Riza was frightened. She had never been locked out of the _house_ before. Papa's study, yes, but not the house. What if it started to rain? she wondered, looking up at the bright blue sky. What if Papa didn't remember to let her in again before it got dark? What if he got busy with his alchemy in Roy's room (_why was he doing alchemy in Roy's room?_) and forgot to let her in ever, ever again?

Riza wanted to cry. She hadn't meant to tell Papa that Roy and Maes were playing in the treehouse. She had known they would get into trouble, but Papa had tricked her! He had made her get mad, so that it had just slipped out. Now Roy was inside, and she was out here all by herself, and nobody was happy.

Someone was walking in the road. Riza hurried around the house to the fence, and peered over it. It was a man, with round spectacles and hardly any hair. He turned towards the path leading up to the house, saw her and smiled.

"Afternoon, little lady," he said politely. He had a pleasant smile and he looked familiar. "You must be Miss Hawkeye."

"I'm Riza," she said shyly. "Are you Maes' grandfather?"

The man chuckled a little. "No, ma'am, I'm his dad. I understand there was a bit of trouble today."

Riza nodded mutely. The man moved out of her sight, and she could hear him knocking at the front door. There was a long silence, then another knock. The man came back around the house and over to the fence, crouching down so that he was approximately at Riza's eye level.

"Is your dad in?" he asked.

Riza nodded. "Papa's inside," she said. "I—"

The front door opened, and the man backed up so that he could see it. "Ah, Mr. Hawkeye," he said. "Absalom Hughes, at your service."

"Were you talking to Riza?" Papa's voice asked coldly.

"Yes, indeed. A lovely young lady."

"Riza, come inside," Papa called.

She fumbled with the gate, and then rounded the house. Papa's face was lined with anger, and his sleeves were rolled up over his elbows. He stepped aside, and motioned Riza past him into the house. Then he looked at the other man.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

Maes' papa adjusted his spectacles and smiled ruefully. "I understand that my boy and your boy got into a scrape today," he said. "I came to discuss it."

Papa's eyes narrowed. "Mustang isn't my boy," he said.

"He's mine," Riza put in timidly, surprised by the sound of her own voice.

"Nevertheless, he's living in your home, and I understand that Maes jumped out of your tree," Mr. Hughes said mildly. There was a pause. "May I come in?"

Papa took Riza's wrist, nodded brusquely, and then walked into the parlour. The other man followed, closing the door politely behind him.

"Have a seat," Papa said, but his tone was not inviting. He adjusted his trousers – Riza noticed that he wasn't wearing his belt – and then settled in his armchair. Mr. Hughes sat down on the couch. Papa let go of Riza, and she retreated to the far side of the room, pressing her back against the sideboard. She didn't know if she was allowed to leave, but at least here she was close to the door if Papa got mad and she had to run away.

The older man shifted a little, trying to maintain an amicable, comfortable facade even though he looked a little uneasy. "I suppose it would be best if I tell you what Maes told me, first," he said.

"I suppose that it would," Papa answered bluntly.

"It seems that he suggested that the two of them climb up into the treehouse. Your girl told them it was dangerous, but Maes was curious, and he talked Roy into it – Maes is quite adamant that it was his idea. Then you came out, and you were... ah... understandably distraught to find that they were playing up there. You apparently..." He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. "You did something with the hedge? Then Maes jumped off of the treehouse, you told him not to come back, and at that point he ran off to get help. He... well, he had the distinct impression that you were going to hurt Roy."

Riza gasped involuntarily, and then withered against the sideboard as Papa turned a sharp, irritated eye on her.

"That's ridiculous," he said smoothly, turning back to Maes' father. "I was angry, yes, and the boy is going to be punished, both for playing up there and for disobeying me when I told him to come down, but I have no intention of hurting him."

"I'm glad," the tinker said. "Maes was very upset: he doesn't want his friend to suffer for something that was his idea in the first place. So I promised I would come by to discuss the matter with you."

"It might have been your son's idea in the first place," Papa commented; "but Roy Mustang knows full well that that treehouse is unsafe. He should never have let your son talk him into going up there, and he deserves to be punished."

The other man chuckled a little, looking vaguely uneasy. "Come, now, they didn't mean any harm, and no one was hurt. Surely—"

"Allow me to make myself quite clear," Papa said grimly. "Two years ago, my son fell from that treehouse and broke his neck. As far as I'm concerned, today's incident goes far beyond a light-hearted boyish antic. They could have been seriously injured, or even killed. The treehouse is not safe, and I deliberately removed the lower rungs of the ladder to prevent anyone from ever trying to go up there again. Even my four-year-old daughter has the good sense and intelligence to know that it is dangerous, and I am not going to allow Roy to get away with disobeying me in this matter. How you discipline your own child is of course up to you, but Roy is my responsibility."

As Papa spoke, the other man paled. Riza wondered if _he_ was afraid of her father, too.

"I see," he said sombrely, removing his glasses and wiping them with his handkerchief. "I'm very sorry. I had no idea that that was how your son had died, Mr. Hawkeye, and I know that Maes didn't, either. I'll make sure he understands the danger that he was flirting with, and I'll see to it that he's properly reprimanded. It won't happen again."

Papa's jaw tightened, and his pale eyes flashed. "No, it most certainly will not," he said, and there was rage and hatred under the enforced calm of his voice. "Your son is not a suitable friend for Roy. He's an impressionable young boy, and obviously incapable of standing up for himself. This is not the first hot water that the pair of them have gotten into together, but I am going to see to it that it is the last. Roy is forbidden from consorting with your son, and I will thank you to keep him away from this house in the future."

The other man's eyes widened in surprise. Then he smiled a little. He had a nice smile, Riza thought.

"I agree, they ought to be made to understand that they mustn't behave this way," he said diplomatically; "but surely a separation of a day or two will teach them that. After all, they've become the best of friends, and though I can't speak for Roy, it would break Maes' heart if—"

"If you won't keep him away, then I'll drive him off!" Papa snapped. "I don't want his sort anywhere near my family. Do I make myself clear?"

The older man got to his feet, squaring his shoulders and straightening his back. "Perfectly," he said. "I'm not quite certain that yours is the sort of family I want my children associating with, either. Good day to you. Please don't get up: I can find my own way out."

He turned his back on Papa and left the room. As he passed Riza, he smiled at her and said politely, "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Hawkeye." Then he was gone.

Papa hissed through his teeth and slammed his fist against the arm of his chair. Riza jumped a little. He was angry, and that frightened her. If only she could slip out the door without him noticing—

"Riza," Papa said sternly, pointing a castigating finger at her. "You listen to me. Roy is in his bedroom. He is being punished, and he is not allowed to talk to you. You stay away from him, or you'll both be in trouble. Do you understand me?"

She nodded frantically. She was suddenly the focus of his attention, and she didn't want that. She wanted to run away and hide.

"Good," Papa growled. Then he got to his feet, brushed past her, and slammed the door of his study behind him.

Riza stood with her back against the sideboard, trembling miserably for a moment. When at last she was able to move again, she hurried into the kitchen and sat down by the woodbox, where the stove offered some shelter from the large, empty room. Thus hidden, she tucked her hands under her pinny and brought it up to her face, crying quietly into the soft, well-worn cotton. Papa was angry and Roy was being punished and Grandfather was gone and she was all alone.

She missed her momma so much.

_discidium_

The four middle brothers sat around the fire, talking in hushed tones. Gareth was stirring his dye pot, which held a piece of leather and a generous supply of madder. Eli had the family's supply of lanterns clustered around him as he worked on grinding a new lens for Maes. Tiath was picking his teeth with a spruce needle. Ira was chaffing his fingertips together, irked by the last pair of dishpan hands that he would have for a fortnight, for as punishment for the afternoon's debacle Maes would be taking on that chore as soon as he had glasses again. Absalom Hughes did not subscribe to corporal punishment: he found punitive responsibilities more effective, and more ultimately useful for the guilty party.

"I don't know what he said, but Dad is _mad_," Tiath whispered, glancing over his shoulder. The aging tinker was wandering between the horses, murmuring softly to them. The embers in the bowl of his pipe cast red tendrils up onto his upper lip and his long nose, and made his eyes glint brightly in the twilight.

"Son-of-a-bitch probably put on airs: a tinker's son's not good enough to play with _my_ children," Ira sneered. "Damned alchemists think they're the Fuhrer's own stepchildren. Maes is better off without the spoiled little brat nipping at his heels."

"Hush," Gareth said, glancing over his shoulder at the smaller caravan, from which until a moment ago bitter – albeit muffled – sobs had been filtering. "He likes the boy: he's practically the only friend Baby's ever had who didn't have black hair, green eyes and specs... no offence, Eli."

"None taken," said the sharp-eyed glassgrinder. He blew a puff of air onto the lathe, sending fine granules of glass blowing into the fire, which carried them aloft like glittering sparks. "He's not much of a spoiled brat, either, Ira. From what the doctor told me, he was on the streets 'til old man Hawkeye took him in. He's practically uneducated, and he's skinny as a stick. I think he appeals to Baby's deep-seated desire to shelter and protect."

Tiath snorted. "I suppose he gets that particular attribute from you?" he asked.

"I said shelter and protect, not charm and conquer," Eli chuckled. "If there was one of us is going to follow in Dad's footsteps, my money's on Maes."

"What, a tinker with a rag-tag entourage of troublemaking sons?" Ira laughed.

"No, stupid. A happily married man with half a dozen children," Eli said.

Ira scowled. "A _widower_ with half a dozen children."

"Enough of that," Gareth said sternly. "You've made enough trouble for one town. If Ben goes off again, Baby's not going to have time to make amends, because we'll be moving on before the corporal comes to drive us off."

"What Benjamin does with his evenings has nothing to do with—"

Tiath clamped a hand over his younger brother's mouth. "Let it alone, Ira. Let's just focus on Maes and his problems, okay?" He looked at Gareth. "You think he should try to make amends with the alchemist?"

"I know he's heartbroken, and even if he did do a stupid thing, he doesn't deserve to lose his friend over it," said Gareth. "We'll give it a couple days for things to settle down, and then we'll see what we can do. Agreed?"

"I don't think Dad'll be on board with that," Eli said. "You know what he's like. That man maligned his little golden boy, and Dad won't want Maes anywhere near him."

"You let me worry about Dad," Gareth said. "The rest of you just keep a low profile so that we don't wind up with a contingent of angry villagers asking us to move on early. Eli, that means you."

The lascivious tradesman smirked. "No enraged husbands, fathers, brothers or uncles. Gotcha, chief."

"Tia, I want you to work on drumming up custom work: stuff that'll keep us here longer. Ira, you stay the hell away from Ben."

Ira frowned. "Yes, Mother," he muttered.

"Good," Gareth said firmly. He pulled his dye off of the fire and got to his feet. "I'm going to see if Maes is still awake."

The other three waited for their older sibling to return. Sure enough, he had not been in the trailer for more than a minute when he came back, shaking his head.

"Cried himself to sleep," he said softly, sitting down with a sigh. He fixed the others with a determined glare. "I don't know why, but this kid's important to him. We're going to help him patch this up, you hear me?"

There was murmured assent around the circle.

_discidium_

Roy was on Davell's bed, lying half-naked on his stomach. His tears of pain and humiliation and heartrending desolation were long past. He had no strength left to weep. All he could do was lie there, and feel the throbbing up and down his back and his buttocks and his thighs where Hawkeye-sensei had hit him, and know that the world was ending.

He wasn't allowed to see Maes anymore. The alchemist had left him in no doubt about that. He was not even to speak to the tinker's boy. He wasn't allowed to play in the yard anymore, either, or to even go outside except to look after the garden and run errands in town, but he didn't care about that. If there was no Maes, then there was nothing of interest in the yard.

If he was even caught _looking_ at "that wandering brat", Hawkeye-sensei had promised to turn him out of the house. Between these ultimatums, the alchemist had railed about discipline and obedience and how, damn it to hell, they could have both been killed! He had asked impossible questions: did Roy _want_ to break his back and be a cripple for the rest of his life? Did he _want_ to die? Did he want Riza crying over his coffin while the undertaker's boy buried him in a pauper's grave on the hill? Did he have any idea how stupid, and dangerous, and _wicked_ climbing into that treehouse had been?

Roy had stuttered out "Yes, sir"s and "No, sir"s as the moment seemed to warrant, while the alchemist by turns shook his shoulders so that his teeth rattled in his head, and slapped his face sharply. His ears were still ringing from the boxing they had received when he had tried to explain that there was a ladder, and it had looked so inviting, and he was ve-very s-s-s-sorry, s-i-i-ir...

Then the alchemist had taken off his belt, slowly and menacingly, doubled it over in his hand, and ordered Roy to let down his trousers. Knowing what was coming but unable to stop it, the child had obeyed. The beating had hurt, but not as much as the repeated reminders that if he ever, _ever_ consorted with that itinerant rapscallion again, he would be back in the gutter where he belonged, because Hawkeye-sensei would not tolerate disobedience and stupidity in his house!

Even now, when the welts were hard and glossy, throbbing excruciatingly with the beating of Roy's heart, the pain was not as bad as the knowledge that he could never see Maes again. Jolly, smiling Maes, his protector and his only friend... he could never see him again.

A dry, broken sob spilled from Roy's lips and fell onto the pillow. It was worse than that, so much worse than that. Maes didn't _want_ to see him. Maes had run away, had abandoned him to bear the consequences of their joint enterprise. They had both been in the treehouse, but it was only Roy who had been punished, because Maes didn't want him anymore. He wasn't good enough to be Maes' friend. He was too stupid and reckless and disobedient and wicked and ungrateful, and all of the other hateful adjectives that the alchemist had used during his tirade. So Maes had rejected him at last, and even Riza didn't want anything to do with him.

Roy's heart was aching. He felt more alone now than he had in a very, very long time. Without Maes' friendship and Riza's quiet love, there was nothing left for him. He might as well just run away. It would be so easy to run, even _if_ Hawkeye-sensei had locked his window with alchemy. After the man went to bed, Roy could creep down the stairs and out the front door and into the night. Then he wouldn't be a bother to anybody, and no one would know that he was wicked and ungrateful and stupid. He would just be a gutter brat again, and nobody would care one way or another.

But he was bruised and sore, and his head felt light and his whole back was alight with agony, and he doubted he could walk right now, much less run. He would have to wait until tomorrow. He could run away tomorrow.

Exhausted and overcome by physical discomfort and emotional aguish, the battered little boy drifted inexorably towards slumber.


	41. The Runaway

**Chapter 41: The Runaway**

"Papa?" Riza said timidly as her father got up from the table and dumped the dinner dishes into the sink.

He sighed a little. "What is it, Riza?" he asked. He didn't sound angry, but he _did_ sound annoyed, and Riza had learned that the former often followed swiftly on the heels of the latter.

"Where is Roy?" she ventured, her voice scarcely audible.

"Sulking in his bedroom, I expect," Papa said shortly. He took the kettle from the stove, and poured the boiling water into the teapot. Then he took three scoops of the black tea that he loved so well, and stirred it thoroughly into the steaming fluid.

"Can't he have dinner?" Riza pleaded. Roy hadn't been allowed to have supper last night because he was being punished, and he had not come down for breakfast this morning, either.

"He could, if he were man enough to come down for it," Papa told her. "If he wants to hide upstairs and feel sorry for himself, then that's no business of mine."

Riza's lower lip quivered. "But he'll be hungry," she said plaintively.

"If he's hungry enough, he'll come downstairs," said Papa. "Now, I have some very important work to do, so I'll be in my study. You be a good girl and keep out of mischief... and if that tinker's brat comes back here, you come and get me so that I can send him packing. Understand?"

"Yes, Papa," Riza whispered.

Apparently satisfied, her father left the room. Riza sat still for a minute, listening for the sound of his study door closing. There. Now he was busy, and she was safe for a while.

She swung her legs and thought about Roy, all alone upstairs. He was probably scared to come down because he knew that Papa was angry at him. She didn't blame Roy for wanting to hide. If Papa were that angry at her, she'd do her best to be invisible. But she was worried. Roy hadn't had anything to eat since the pear that Maes had brought him yesterday, and Riza knew how unpleasant it was to be hungry. She knew that Roy always made sure she had food, when he could, and she felt obligated to do the same for him.

She pushed a chair across to the counter, and climbed up on it. The breadbox was open, and she took out the half-loaf left over from dinner. She knew that she wasn't allowed to use the sharp knives, so she dug her nails into the soft crust and tore off a large hunk. Plain bread wasn't very nice to eat, but she couldn't reach the honey pot. She looked around for something else, and spied the butter dish. She paused thoughtfully for a moment before sticking her finger into the pretty yellow pat of butter, scooping up a little of it. She smeared it awkwardly over the bread, then popped the greasy finger into her mouth to suck away what remained. She looked at her handiwork proudly. There, she thought. Bread and butter for Roy.

The loaf looked funny now, with the piece torn away. Riza felt a flutter of anxiety in her stomach. Papa would know she had taken some. Would he be angry? Mostly he didn't seem to care what – or even if – she ate, but what if he was mad this time? She could never tell if Papa was going to be mad, and sometimes the uncertainty was the worst part. She slid the bread into the breadbox so that the heel was facing her and the torn side was tucked into the corner. There! Now it didn't look strange. Papa would never spot the difference.

Roy would be thirsty, too, she thought. She knew that she was too small to lift the heavy bottle of milk and pour from it, so Roy would have to have water. Her blue tin cup was in the sink, and Riza rinsed it, filling it from the tap. She set the cup next to the bread and butter. It wasn't a very nice dinner, but it was the best she could do.

She pushed the chair back to the table, and picked up the food and the cup. She didn't dare to try to step over the bad stair, lest she should spill the water, so she tried to move onto it gently. It was no use: the sharp _crack!_ still rang out. Riza froze, hoping that Papa hadn't heard it. When no sound came from below, she went on her way.

The door to Davell's room was closed, so she had to set down the mug on the floor before she could turn the handle. She pushed the door open, picked up the cup, and entered.

Roy was lying on top of the covers, his face buried against the pillow. He was wearing one of the new shirts that Doctor Bella had given him, but he had no pants on. His bare, skinny thighs were covered in long, red welts that were bruising around the edges. As she came closer, Riza could see that the contusions continued up onto his bottom, too, where the hem of the shirt ended. She sucked in a sympathetic breath. That looked like it hurt!

"Roy?" she said softly. When he didn't answer, she deposited her offerings on the bedside table and reached out to touch his hair.

Roy made a soft, sleepy sound and rolled his head towards her. He licked his lips and croaked out a bleary, "Riza?"

"Are you sleeping?" she whispered.

Roy's eyes opened further, and he lifted his left fist to scrub at them. "No," he told her. He moved as if he wanted to sit up, but the moment he tried to shift his leg he whimpered a little and pressed his cheek firmly against the pillow, so that it squished the side of his mouth.

"Are you hurt?" Riza asked, petting his head. His brow was warm and clammy, and his hair was damp with sweat. "Why are you hurt?"

"I'm okay," Roy said stoically. "I'm just a little sore, that's all."

"I brought you dinner," Riza told him, hoping that this revelation would cheer him up. "I made it myself."

Roy raised his head. "Didn't Hawkeye-sensei feed you?" he asked, suddenly anxious.

"Yes," Riza said. "We had some of Doctor Bella's soup, but Papa said you had to come down if you wanted any, and you didn't come down."

"I don't think I'm allowed," Roy croaked. "I'm in trouble." He coughed a little, flinching as he did so, and his eyes moved longingly to the cup. "Is that for me?" he asked.

"Uh-huh," Riza confirmed. She felt a little burst of happiness. He wanted the water! She had been clever to bring it for him. She picked up the cup and studied him. "You gotta sit up," she said. "Or else you'll spill it."

Roy didn't seem to like this suggestion. He looked around as best he could without changing his position. Then he bit his lip and rolled gingerly onto his side, hissing a little as if it hurt him to do so. Then he used his right arm to prop himself up into a semi-prone position, all the while careful to keep his back from touching the bed.

He reached for the cup, but his hand was shaking, and some of the water splashed out onto the blue dove-in-the-window quilt. Riza squealed softly, and snatched the mug away.

"You'll make a mess," she scolded, extending it towards his lips herself. Roy took hold of her hand, and drew in a large, greedy gulp of water.

He smiled tremulously. "Thank you," he said.

Riza nodded. "You're welcome." The shirt didn't cover him up very well, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings by saying so. "Do you want to put on your pants?" she asked instead.

Roy shuddered and shook his head. Then he looked at his bare legs and flushed a little. "Maybe my nightshirt," he conceded.

"Okay." Riza went to the clothes-press and brought over the garment. Roy unbuttoned his shirt and tried to slide it off his shoulders, but he gasped a little and stopped.

"It's stuck," he hissed, his shoulders tensing.

"Let me see." Riza climbed up onto the bed and looked at his shirt. There was a dark stain near the small of his back, and the cloth there was stuck to one of the ugly red ridges. "It's pasted onto you," she said, torn between empathy and curiosity.

Roy tried again to remove the shirt, but his whole back spasmed and he muffled a cry of pain. "I can't," he moaned quietly.

"I'll do it," Riza said. Then, before Roy could protest, she grabbed the shirt and pulled it away. There was a soft sound of tearing flesh, and Roy yelped hoarsely. Riza looked at his sore back and clapped her hand over her mouth. "You're bleeding!" she cried in dismay. A thin, watery red trail was running from a cut in one of the long sores.

"It-it's okay," Roy mumbled. He reached for his nightshirt and hurried to cover his nakedness, flinching as the fabric touched his sore skin. He tried to sit properly, but rolled back onto his side almost at once.

"Roy?" Riza asked, crawling over his calves and coming up to the head of the bed. "Roy, are you okay? Do you need Doctor Bella?"

For a moment, Roy looked very vulnerable and frightened. Then his expression hardened into a stalwart mask, and he shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm just a little sore." He paused, studying her face. "Do you want me to read you a story?"

It was tempting, but Roy looked tired and sick. Riza shook her head and plumped up his pillow. "You need to eat your dinner," she said, reaching for the bread and butter. Roy took it, and stared at it wordlessly. "I made it myself," Riza boasted timidly.

Roy smiled, and this time he really did seem pleased. "Thank you," he said. He eased himself down onto the pillow and nibbled at the bread. "You're awful good to me, Riza," he said quietly.

Riza petted his hair gently. He was shivering, so she moved closer to him and curled her arm around the crown of his head. "You're a good boy," she said softly.

A single tear rolled down Roy's cheek and he busied himself with his dinner.

_discidium_

The moon was high overhead when Bella Greyson eased Milly to a stop before the Hawkeye house. She stroked her mare's flank as she dismounted, and set her reigns on the grass.

It had been a long, busy day: a family on the very edge of her sphere of practice had four children come down with a terrible case of tonsillitis. Bella had spent the afternoon in the kitchen of the overcrowded farmhouse, which served as a makeshift operating theatre. The first two procedures had gone smoothly enough, but then the youngest child had refused to succumb to the chloroform and the laudanum, and finally had to be sedated with a shot of morphia, and the eldest had seemed unlikely to _ever _stop bleeding. Finally, improvising as best she could, Bella had heated one of the mother's knitting needles in the fire until it glowed white-hot, and cauterized the back of the girl's throat. She would be sore for a while, but at least she would neither die of sepsis nor bleed out.

After such a frustrating day, Bella wanted very much to go home, soak in a hot bath, and curl up in bed for what would hopefully be a solid five or six hours' sleep. However, she had had a visitor that morning who had told a tale necessitating one last stop before the evening could end. She knocked on the door, waited ninety seconds, then knocked again.

As she had expected, Mordred appeared just as she was preparing to knock a third time. He looked better than she expected, for he had bathed and shaved, and the shirt he was wearing was clean, save for a few smudges of ink on the cuffs.

Seeing her, the alchemist sneered a little. "I should have known you'd be around," he said. "After all, your glassgrinding lover could hardly keep a secret from you."

Bella was taken aback by that comment. Did he really think that she and Eli Hughes had some kind of intimate relationship? Why did he even care? "Eli is a specialist who offers care to my patients that I cannot," she said coolly; "and I am proud to call him my friend. Though he is certainly not my lover, we do have a certain level of trust between us, and yes, he did tell me what happened yesterday."

Mordred sighed resignedly and opened the door further. "Won't you come in," he said, an edge of sarcasm colouring his voice.

Bella smiled sweetly. "Why, thank you," she said. Mordred moved as if to usher her into the parlour, but Bella strode into the study instead. She wanted to meet him in his sanctum both because it was a less formal setting, and because Mordred was clearly in a stubborn mood. When he was determined to behave like a pigheaded fool, any upset to his expectations was a tactical advantage. By behaving as if this was her house, Bella tilted the balance of power, and would hopefully faze the man just enough to startle him out of his posture of obstinacy.

"So what did you hear?" the alchemist asked sourly.

Bella moved towards his desk, which was strewn with sketches of various alchemical arrays. "Roy and the youngest Hughes were in the treehouse," she said. "And you've forbidden them to see each other."

"You don't waste time," scoffed Mordred. "Let me guess: you think that was mean of me."

"I think you overreacted," Bella said. Suddenly she felt like she was twelve again, arguing with him over her father's checkerboard. What on earth was she doing here? It was none of her business... "It's understandable, given the circumstances, but I think you should reconsider."

"They could have been killed!" Mordred exclaimed. "And it's not the first time that that tinker's brat has led the boy off into mischief! There was the trouble at school, the fights, staying out 'til all hours of the night—"

"They're _boys_, Mordred! They're going to get into a little trouble, whatever you do;" Bella reasoned. "Besides, Roy needs a friend, and Maes Hughes is quite the best candidate I've seen. You wouldn't want him running around with those little bullying beasts from the village, would you?"

"So I should just pretend that none of this happened?" Mordred demanded sourly.

"No, of course not. Give him a little spanking, scold him, and above all explain why what he did was wrong... then give him a day or two to think it over, and let him go back to play with his friend," Bella said. "Every parent goes through this. The circumstances were just a little too close to your heart, that's all."

"Damn you, Bella, I..." Mordred's voice broke and he crumpled into his chair, hiding his head in his hands. "When that boy jumped, all I could see was Davell falling," he choked out. "All I could hear was Lian... L-Lian screaming. And... and it... it..."

Annoyance forgotten, Bella rounded the desk to wrap her arms around her suffering friend. "I know," she said softly. "I understand how frightening that must have been. I understand why you were angry, and why you said those things to Mr. Hughes. But that doesn't mean you can't take them back."

Mordred thrust her off and got to his feet. "I don't _want_ to take them back!" he snapped. "Don't you dare tell me who I can and cannot have under my roof. This is all your fault, you stupid woman!"

"My fault?" Bella exclaimed indignantly. "Because I happen to be friends with the boy's older brother?"

"Because you made me take him in!" Mordred shouted, and suddenly Bella realized that he wasn't talking about Maes Hughes. "You argued and cajoled and manipulated me until I agreed to let the little wretch stay here, and now Riza loves him and he's useful and I don't want to see him kill himself! The damned little beast."

For a moment Bella couldn't speak. She only stared at Mordred as comprehension dawned. "You care about him," she said softly. "He's not just a charitable duty to you anymore: you really care about Roy."

"Yes!" Mordred barked, gesticulating impotently. "Damnation, yes, I care about him. And yesterday, I was so angry, I... I just... I couldn't help myself..."

Suddenly he was weeping, clutching his stomach with one hand and his face with the other, twitching with the force of his sobs. Bella wanted to run to him, but something made her hold back. She was not the one whose comfort he wanted. That woman was far away in an asylum in Central, locked deep within the recesses of a grief-addled mind. She waited until the paroxysm passed, and Mordred was able to straighten himself, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"Are you still here?" he growled, glaring at her.

"I'm always here," she said softly. "You know that. Mordred, please. I know you didn't mean what you said to Absalom Hughes. Go to him and make it right. Let Roy have his friend back. Please."

The alchemist shook his head. "You're wrong, Bella. I did mean it. I don't want that little hellion anywhere near the boy. He's trouble, and Roy's character is too weak to stand up to him. The next time Hughes does something stupid, I might not be there to stop it in time. He's not coming near this house again."

Bella pursed her lips. "He's doing more good than harm," she manoeuvred. "Roy needs a friend—"

"He has Riza, and that should be enough," Mordred said coldly. "That's my last word on the matter. Now go. You've done enough for one evening. Can I expect you Friday?"

"Of course," Bella said; "but Mordred..." She stopped. He wasn't going to yield. Not tonight. She would try again on Friday: in her experience time cooled the man's temper, though it did little for his pride. "I want to see Roy, first," she told him, starting for the door.

"No!" Mordred said sharply, and for a moment Bella thought she could see something like fear in his eyes. Fear and... guilt? But then it was gone, replaced with annoyance. "He's asleep. You can see him on Friday."

There was something in his tone that made Bella vaguely uncomfortable... but that was ridiculous. Mordred was an impatient, imperious and boneheaded man, but he would never hurt the children. She was imagining things because she was tired and had spent a long afternoon inflicting pain on little ones herself, in the name of good medicine. She needed a long bath and a few good hours of sleep. She nodded.

"All right," she said. "Friday."

"Friday," Mordred agreed. He moved to open the front door for her. "Goodnight, Bella."

She smiled wearily. "Goodnight."

The door closed, and Milly nudged her shoulder insistently. Bella smiled at her horse. "That's right, my girl," she sighed. "Time to go home."

_discidium_

Roy heard the angry voices stop. He heard the front door open and close. He heard the long, endless silence that meant that Hawkeye-sensei was working in his study. At last, there were footfalls on the stairs, one longer than the rest as the alchemist stepped over the bad step. The shadowy form of the adult passed Roy's door on its way to the master bedroom.

The boy waited for a long time. The house was silent. It was past the hour at which Riza usually awoke in the grip of her night terrors, so it seemed that for tonight she would be safe from her nocturnal tormenters. At last, convinced that the alchemist must be asleep by this time, Roy got off of the bed.

He was too sore to try putting on his pants, but the clothes were his: Doctor Bella had said so. They were all his own. He went to the clothes-press and gathered them, wrapping everything into the yellow shirt. He hesitated for a moment before kneeling by the bed to draw out the primer that Riza's grandfather had given him, and the bag of marbles from Maes. He added these to his bundle. Then he moved into the hall.

He felt a little dizzy, and his back and thighs ached, sharp little pains shooting through him whenever the nightshirt brushed against a particularly tender spot. He made his way to the hamper, and felt around until he found his soiled shirt, with its little crusting of blood. He tucked this under his arm, too, and moved towards the stairs.

He was afraid. He didn't know where he would go, but he knew he couldn't stay here. The alchemist hated him, and he would hurt him again if he stayed. Riza was a big girl and she could take care of himself. Maybe if he could find his way to the creek bluffs, Maes' family would let him go away with them. Maes had a nice family. They were happy and playful and never cross – except for the time that Gareth had hit Ira, of course. He could go away with them, and...

There was a soft, cooing sound behind him. Roy turned, squinting into the darkness. The low flame of the gas lamp shed little light, but he could make out a small figure in a too-short nightgown.

"Riza?" he whispered.

The little girl toddled forward, rubbing at her eyes with one small fist. "Roy?" she said. Her voice was tiny and quavering, and she sounded frightened. "I heard a noise."

Roy's stomach did a somersault of guilt. He carefully put down his burden, hoping that Riza couldn't see it. "What kind of a noise?" he asked her gently.

"It sounded like quacking," Riza confessed. She made a fragile noise in the back of her throat that told the boy that she was trying not to cry.

"Don't worry," he soothed, coming forward and taking her hand. "I've been awake this whole time, and I didn't hear one quack. It's probably the wind blowing on the roof."

Riza's grip on his fingers tightened, and she pressed her shoulder against him, seeking solace in the darkness. "Could you sing me a song so that I can get back to sleep?" she asked timorously.

"I don't know any songs," Roy told her regretfully.

Riza considered this. "You know the alphabet song," she said. "You could sing that one."

Roy nodded stoutly. "Okay," he said. He led her back into her room and helped her into bed. Then he tucked her in and stood beside her, stroking her hair and softly singing his letters over and over again for her benefit.

When at last the little girl was asleep, Roy slipped from the room. He stood in the corridor for a moment, torn between liberty and responsibility. At last he reached his decision. He returned to the top of the stairs and picked up the bundle that held his meagre worldly possessions. Quietly, he returned to Davell's room and got back into bed, careful to lie on his stomach so that he did not further harm his ravaged back.

He couldn't run away; not now and not ever. Riza needed him. He had to stay.


	42. Restore Amends?

**Chapter 42: Restore Amends?**

The following morning, Roy was startled and no small bit terrified when Hawkeye-sensei came into Davell's room and closed the door. He strode across the room and stripped the covers off of the boy. Roy stiffened, bracing himself for a blow.

"You can't spend the whole week in bed," the alchemist said, his voice level and unreadable.

Roy, lying helpless on his stomach, couldn't even muster the courage to nod. The adult plucked up the hem of his nightshirt and hiked it over his shoulder blades. A cool and... almost gentle hand brushed lightly over the bruises. Roy bit his lip so that he did not cry out when the alchemist touched an especially sore place.

"Sit up," Hawkeye-sensei said, returning the garment to its place.

Roy wasn't sure if he could obey. The pain was less than it had been yesterday, but it still hurt, and he knew that if he tried to put pressure on the welts they would hurt worse. He rolled cautiously onto his side and pushed himself up on one elbow, so that he was nearly upright, hoping that that would be enough.

The alchemist had a brown bottle in his hand, and was shaking it vigorously. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a spoon. As he poured the pale yellow liquid, Roy recognized the vessel. It was Mrs. Hawkeye's laudanum bottle.

"Here, open up," the alchemist said gruffly, slipping the medicine between Roy's teeth. "When that takes effect, you can get dressed and come downstairs. You're late for breakfast, but I'll fix you something."

Roy wasn't sure what to think, so he opted for the safe route. He nodded and said quietly, "Yes, sir."

Hawkeye-sensei capped the bottle and nodded curtly. "Good boy," he said. Then he departed, leaving Roy more disconcerted than ever.

Good boy?

_discidium_

By Friday, Roy's back and buttocks felt much better. The hard, painful welts had faded to blotchy green bruises, and he could sit or lie face-up without discomfort. Hawkeye-sensei seemed much calmer now, and almost differential. He spent a good deal of time working with Roy on his lessons, and he even came outside to help him catch up on the garden work. In response to her father's new, less hostile attitude, Riza was happier, going quietly but contentedly about her daily business in a way that did Roy's heart good. If only he could have still had Maes, life would have been simply wonderful.

The loss of his friend was a grievous blow to Roy's heart. He had never had a proper companion before, and though Riza was sweet and he loved her, he missed the company of the other boy. Every time he went outside to work in the garden, he half expected the grinning, bespectacled tinker's son to pop his head over the hedge or come climbing into the yard with some fresh anecdote about his brothers. Whenever Roy remembered all the fun things they used to do together, a hard lump formed in his throat, and every night he thought about the fact that Maes didn't want him and he wasn't good enough and anyway Hawkeye-sensei had forbidden them from ever seeing each other again, and he cried a little into his pillow.

Those tears were his guilty secret. He was trying very hard to be cheerful for Riza, who seemed worried about him. He wondered if she guessed what he had been about to do on the night when some "quacking" had awakened her unexpectedly. He hoped that she didn't... because he was ashamed of that, too.

Doctor Bella came with supper on Friday night, and the four of them sat around the table, relishing her good roasted chicken and the cabbage-and-rice casserole that she had brought. When the meal was finished, Doctor Bella stood up.

"I want to check your teeth, Roy," she said. "Come into the parlour, please."

Roy obeyed, and sat down on the sofa. Holding a candle with a tin reflector aloft, Doctor Bella peered into his mouth, wiggling his teeth one by one with her little steel pick.

"This one is going to come out any day now," she said, wiggling one of his incisors. "You're growing up so quickly."

Roy couldn't speak, of course, so he tried to look pleased.

"I hear that you and Maes Hughes had a falling-out?" the doctor went on. "I gather that Hawkeye-sensei doesn't approve of your choice of friends."

Roy's innards lurched and twisted miserably. He shook his head a little.

"Roy, I want you to understand that you frightened sensei very badly by climbing into that treehouse," said Doctor Bella. "That's why he was angry, and that's why he doesn't want Maes around. He was terribly scared."

Hawkeye-sensei scared? Roy didn't believe that. The alchemist had been angry because he was a wicked, disobedient child, not because of fear.

"He'll change his mind," the physician promised. "When he starts to forget how afraid he was, then he'll let Maes come back, but you mustn't go into that treehouse ever again. It's very dangerous. Davell died falling from it, you know. It isn't safe, even if you're careful. It just isn't safe. Do you understand?"

She removed the instrument from Roy's mouth and he swallowed the saliva that had been pooling under his tongue. "Yes, ma'am," he said softly.

"I'm glad," she said, reaching to brush a stray tendril of hair out of his eyes. "You're a very dear boy, and none of us want to see you hurt: not me, not Riza and not Hawkeye-sensei."

Roy didn't quite believe _that_, either. Of course, Doctor Bella didn't want to see him hurt, and Riza was very upset whenever he was, but Hawkeye-sensei didn't care. He deserved to be knocked around, and the alchemist knew it, which was why he had flogged him so harshly. Still, he nodded, because it seemed easiest.

"I suppose you caught some punishment, though, didn't you?" Doctor Bella asked sympathetically.

Roy's pulse quickened. He didn't want her to know that he had been punished! He was ashamed of the whipping, ashamed of the marks that still marred his body, and above all ashamed by the knowledge that he had deserved it. Doctor Bella was so sweet and kind and loving: he didn't want her to know that he had been so wicked that he deserved a beating like that. That she knew the crime made no difference: if she knew the punishment, she would be ashamed of him and so disappointed! He couldn't bear that!

"I went to bed without supper," he said. It was essentially the truth – with a few key details left out. "Hawkeye-sensei was angry."

The doctor nodded, but she looked annoyed. "I know he was, but I'm going to speak with him," she said. "I don't want you skipping meals: you're thin enough as it is!"

Roy coloured deeply. He hated, _hated_ to be reminded of his skinny, inadequate body. He hugged himself miserably.

Doctor Bella blew out the candle, and put the dental probe back into her bag. Then she smiled and patted her knee. "Come here, Roy," she said, helping him climb into her lap.

Her knee struck the one place where his thigh was still badly bruised, and Roy stiffened a little. The doctor didn't seem to notice. She drew him close to her and wrapped her warm arms around him. Roy was startled at first, and confused. Why was she doing this? Then he realized that she was hugging him, and he leaned into the embrace, as starved for consolation as she was for a child to console. The doctor pressed his head to her shoulder, petting his hair and rocking gently to and fro.

"You're such a good boy," she said softly. "It's hard to believe that you're growing so fast. Soon you'll be too old for this."

Her lips brushed his forehead in a matronly kiss, and Roy let himself relax further into the encompassing hug. The doctor cuddled him for a while longer, then sat back and smiled.

"Well, now," she said. "Riza will think we've run away! Let's get back to the kitchen and see about dessert."

Roy followed her, but not happily. Somehow, he felt lonelier than ever, and he missed Maes so much. He missed him so much.

_discidium_

It was Saturday, one week after the incident in the treehouse. The children were upstairs, doing something quiet, and Mordred was poring over the latest letter from Central. In it, his father-in-law reported that Lian had taken a turn for the worse. Mordred had feared that that might happen: after all, they had just passed the anniversary of Davell's death. Still, ill news looked-for is no easier to bear, and his heart ached at the thought of his beautiful wife alone and suffering hundreds of miles from home. That Central had been her home for longer than Hamner had, and that her father was there with her were two thoughts that scarcely flitted through his head.

His mournful thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the front door. Bella again, he thought, getting to his feet. That woman was incorrigible. Why didn't she just move in and get it over with? His mild irritation was coloured with a little gratitude. He could use a sympathetic ear right now, and Bella qualified in that department – when she wasn't meddling in the running of the household.

He opened the front door, but instead of finding himself face-to-face with the smiling physician, Mordred was staring down at a tall, lanky boy. The new spectacles, their round lenses smaller than those of the previous pair, gave his face a less owlish appearance, but with the lively green eyes and the unruly black hair there was no mistaking him. The Hughes boy.

"Sir," he said, not waiting for the alchemist to comment; "I wanted to apologize. What I did last week was wrong, and it was especially wrong to drag Roy in with me. I realized now how stupid it was to climb up in that treehouse, and I hope..." He paused, as if groping the recesses of his mind for the next line of a prepared speech. "I hope you will forgive me and allow me to—"

The rote recitation was cut off in mid-sentence as Mordred slammed the door in the boy's face. The almighty nerve! After he had expressly told the brat's father to keep him away, too. Irritated, Mordred returned to his study.

_discidium_

On Monday morning, Mordred opened the door to bring in the milk. To his astonishment, there was a little basket next to the cool bottles. It was covered with a checked cloth, and upon lifting it, he saw that it was full of glossy green apples. A note written on brown butcher's paper was nestled among the fruit. He picked it up and read:

_Dear Sir,_

_Please forgive me. I know now that climbing into the treehouse was wrong, and it was a mistake to drag Roy..._

Hawkeye growled softly to himself, pulled out his flint, and incinerated the offensive document on the spot.

He did, however keep the apples: no sense letting good food go to waste.

_discidium_

Tuesday evening, the alchemist was bent over another futile attempt at drawing an encoded array when he felt a draft on his neck. Looking up, he noticed that the window was open just far enough for a hand to fit through. Annoyed, he rose to close it. Sitting on the sill was a rope of expensive beeswax candles: half a dozen long, smooth, fragrant tapers that Mordred knew would burn cleaner and longer than the cheap tallow ones that he used now. Underneath the candles was, of course, a square of butcher's paper. On it, someone had scrawled a signature that Mordred couldn't read, and a slanting plea: _I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. Please forgive me?_

He frowned and tossed the note into the fire. He set the candles on his desk and frowned at them. He wasn't going to be bribed by any lousy bespectacled child.

_discidium_

Wednesday, there was an unfamiliar colander on the back step, and on Thursday, a tissue-wrapped bundle turned up with the milk. It contained a pair of deerskin gloves with soft fleece lining. The next day, Mordred found two smooth glass tumblers with forest scenes etched into their sides standing on the windowsill of his study. That was the last straw: the offerings were getting more and more expensive, and the entire issue was out of hand.

On Friday afternoon, he bundled the candles and the glasses into the colander and strode out of the house.

_discidium_

Maes was bent over the Fifth Reader, answering questions about the fourth Fuhrer of Amestris on his writing tablet. He was beginning to get discouraged. All week he had been leaving peace offerings and pleas for forgiveness at the Hawkeye house. Gareth had said that it was a bad idea: that the best thing he could do was try to apologize in a polite, reasoned way. When he had tried that, he had been rewarded by very nearly catching his nose in the alchemist's front door. Distraught, he had turned elsewhere for advice, and Eli had supplied it.

"When they're mad, I give 'em presents," he had said blithely. So that was what Maes had tried.

It didn't seem to be working. At least, Roy was still confined to the house, and there didn't appear to be any sign of yielding on the part of the alchemist. Worse, Dad was definitely ready to move on, and only the fact that Tiath (who was usually not interested in the salesmanship end of tinkering) had suddenly drummed up several custom orders was keeping the family in Hamner. Time was running out.

He looked up. Someone was coming into the clearing, but it wasn't Dad and it wasn't Ben. His other brothers were all here already... and then Maes saw that the visitor had yellow hair and a thin, severe-looking face.

"Mr. Hawkeye!" he said eagerly, springing to his feet. Tiath looked up from grooming his pony. Eli had been melting down shards of scrap glass, but he removed his pan from the kiln and got to his feet. Ira, who had been whittling a little wooden fife, snapped his penknife shut and slid it into his pocket.

"Who's in charge here?" the alchemist demanded, looking from one young man to the next and apparently seeing no figure of authority.

"That's me," Gareth said lazily. He was lounging in the shade of the larger caravan, whipstitching silk twist onto the cuff of a lady's riding glove. "What can I do for you?"

Hawkeye strode towards him, and Maes realized that he had the gifts tucked under his arm. The boy felt a little uneasy. Strictly speaking, he hadn't had any right to take that stuff, much less give it to the alchemist. Of course, his brothers always acted like they had free run of the inventory, but they were all – with the exception of Ira, who was Dad's apprentice, and Ben, who could have cared less about the goods – journeyman or master craftsmen, and a lot of it was their handiwork.

"I'm here to talk about your nephew," the alchemist said.

"I haven't got a nephew," Gareth said.

"Son, then."

"I don't think any of us has a son, but if we did, my money would be on Eli." Gareth smiled sweetly and went on with his sewing.

The alchemist's jaw twitched, and Eli grinned and waved.

"Of course, since I don't have a nephew, your odds there aren't that great," Gareth went on. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Maybe next year."

Hawkeye pointed a long, bony finger at Maes. "_Him_," he growled.

"Oh, him," Gareth said sagely. "Don't know who he is. Found him sitting on a post, and I thought I'd fatten him up and make a stew of him."

Maes cringed. This was disastrous! He had thought that Gareth was going to try to help him patch things up with Roy's prickly guardian, not make the situation worse!

To his surprise, the alchemist let out a snort that sounded suspiciously like laughter. "Your _brother_, then," he said tersely.

"Now you've got it!" Gareth cheered. "What about him?"

"He's been leaving things at my home, and I refuse to accept them," Hawkeye said. He set down the colander full of goods.

Gareth peered into it, and then shot Maes the briefest of castigatory glances. The boy's stomach fluttered. Yup, he wasn't supposed to take that stuff.

"Ah, yes," Gareth said, tying off his thread and reaching for the spool by his ankle. "Free samples."

Tiath snorted into Dauntless' flank.

"It's unacceptable," said the alchemist. His voice was calm, but firm and almost angry. "I made it quite clear to his father that I do not want him anywhere near my family. I certainly don't want him sneaking into my house to leave behind rubbish intended to bribe me into changing my mind."

"I didn't!" Maes exclaimed. "I only opened the window. I thought..."

He stopped. The alchemist fixed him with a cold, murderous glare.

"Stay away," he snarled. "You're not wanted."

Gareth set his work down and got to his feet. "That's no way to talk to your host," he said. At the alchemist's startled expression, the glover smiled. "You see, as long as we're here, this is _our _home, and that makes you our guest. Our uninvited guest." His teeth glittered in the sunlight.

The older man stiffened. "Yes, of course," he said. "I'll be going now... but I want you to keep your boy—"

"Brother," Gareth corrected.

"Brother," Hawkeye growled. "Away from my family."

Eli rose, dusting off his trousers. "Listen, I know you're upset, but you need to be reasonable. Maes is just a kid, and he didn't know about your son's death. He's learned his lesson, and we've all given him a good talking-to about playing with younger kids. Let's let bygones be bygones, all right?"

The alchemist frowned at him. "No, thank you," he said coolly.

Tiath ran a hand through his hair. "Didn't you ever do anything stupid when you were his age?" he reasoned. "He's learned his lesson and he won't do it again."

Mr. Hawkeye gave him a withering glare, and started to walk away.

"Wait!" Gareth said, bending to pick something out of the colander. "At least take the gloves. They're some of my best work. Consider it a token of good will; no strings attached."

The older man hesitated, then took the proffered garments and nodded curtly. "Thank you and good day," he said. Then he strode off into the trees.

Gareth stood still for a moment, looking after him. Then he turned to Maes and crooked his finger imperiously. With a small, sheepish smile, Maes approached his brother slowly.

"Nicking from the inventory to bribe an alchemist," Gareth scolded, shaking his head. Then he smirked and ruffled the boy's hair. "You must have got that idea from Eli."

"Didn't work, though, did it?" Maes groused. "He's still not gonna let me see Roy."

"We did warn you about playing with little kids," Eli said, _sotto voce. _Then he came over and punched Maes' shoulder fondly. "Don't worry: he'll come around. I was talking to the doctor, and she said he's stubborn, but he's also got a short memory. By the time we roll around here again, it'll be forgiven and forgotten."

Maes didn't find that comforting. By next year, Roy would probably have forgotten all about him, too.


	43. An Extraordinary Talent

**Chapter 43: An Extraordinary Talent **

It was ten o'clock at night, but for all Roy knew it might have been four in the morning. He felt as if he had been lying here, staring at the moonlit ceiling, for days. He had gone into town today to buy bread and meat, and there he had heard people talking. He was never included in the gossip, of course, but sometimes adults seemed prone to forget that children have ears. Today, the topic of conversation was the tinkers, and the news was as bad as any Roy had heard. The Hughes family was leaving town.

Though all along he had feared that Maes had rejected him on the day when he had run away and left Roy alone with an enraged Hawkeye-sensei, he had hoped that the tinker's boy had only been frightened. He had hoped that despite the alchemist's ban he would receive some sign that Maes still cared about him, still wanted to be friends. Now the tinkers were leaving, and Maes hadn't even come by the house to _try_ to see him.

A strange rapping noise made Roy sit up with a gasp. There was something in the room with him! Then the noise came again, and he saw a shadow occluding part of the window. With as much speed as he could muster, Roy clamoured out of bed and hurried to the window.

Round spectacles – smaller than the old ones – perched on the bridge of a long nose, and green eyes glinted in the moonlight. Maes Hughes was grinning at him.

"Maes!" Roy cried. The boy's armpits were level with the sill: he was standing on the roof of the lean-to. He tried to push up the window, then mimed that Roy should do it.

Roy tried, straining against the wood. Then he remembered. Hawkeye-sensei had closed the window with alchemy: there was still the chalk circle that he had drawn on the sill. Roy shook his head helplessly.

Still grinning, Maes gestured more urgently. Roy looked at the strange circle with its curious symbols. Hawkeye-sensei made alchemy look so easy. He used his hands: palms open, fingers extended, and he...

Roy slammed his palms down against the circle. Nothing happened. Maes was watching him curiously, squinting so as to make out his form behind the glass. Roy considered the problem. He had seen the alchemist do this hundreds of times: on the hedge, in the washtub, on his study door. It couldn't be hard. The hands were the important part. He tried again.

Nothing.

He gestured that Maes should lean away, out of his light, and looked at the chalk circle. Parts of it were smudged. Maybe that was why it wasn't working. He crossed the room and groped on the bookshelf until he found his slate pencil, sitting on top of Davell's slate. He licked the tip and tried to carefully restore the missing parts of the drawing. A line here, a gentle curve there... He studied it. It looked a lot like the one burned into the door of Hawkeye-sensei's study, except that there was a smudge on the edge of the circle. Downstairs, that one had a symbol there. If only he could remember...

He closed his eyes, concentrating carefully. He had passed the symbol hundreds of times, but he had never looked at it properly before. It was a "U", he thought. But no, it wasn't. No, it was an upside-down "U", rounder than the letter was and shaped... more like a fat horseshoe. Yes, that was it.

Meticulously, he drew the symbol. There. Now this circle looked like the one downstairs. Setting the slate pencil aside, Roy tried again.

Nothing happened.

He stamped one bare foot in frustration. It wasn't fair! He had drawn the circle properly, he knew that he had. It was supposed to lock things, and _unlock_ them too! It was _supposed_ to unlock his window. It was _supposed to!_

He slammed his hands down, discouraged and disheartened, and then something terrifying and wonderful happened.

For a moment, he could feel the potential energy swirling around him, waiting patiently for someone – anyone – with the strength and inclination to channel it. Then his whole body stiffened as all of that energy was drawn into him, focusing itself into his mind and through his chest and down his arms, bursting from his hands and igniting the array with power. Then there was something else: a moment of clarity and enlightenment that blazed through his mind like blinding sheet lightning... and dissipated almost before it began. For the briefest fraction of an instant, he was something_ more_ than a human being; something vast and mighty and timeless.

And then suddenly, he was just a bare-footed boy in a baggy nightshirt, standing by Davell's bedroom window and shaking like a leaf in a cyclone while on the other side of the glass, his friend stared in amazement. Remembering himself, Roy tried the window. It opened with ease, and Maes hurried to hold it for him while he propped it open with the stick.

"What did you do? How'd you do it?" Maes gawked in a breathless whisper.

"Alchemy, I think," Roy gasped.

"That was _amazing_!" Maes raised his fist and waited for Roy to bop it with his own. "I wanted to talk to you."

"I thought you didn't want to be friends anymore," Roy confessed, his moment of triumph deflating back into insecurity. "Because you didn't come back."

"Hah!" Maes barked, then covered his lips with his fingertips. "Of course I want to be your friend: I've been back every day this week," he whispered. "Hawkeye won't let me talk to you."

"Oh." Roy was torn between despair as he remembered the ban on associating with his friend and all of the dreadful consequences the alchemist had promised, and jubilation, because Maes _had_ come back after all and _did_ want to be his friend!

"But Dad's itching to move on, and we're pulling up stakes tomorrow," Maes said. "I want... I don't want you to forget about me."

"I won't," Roy whispered fervently. Forget about Maes? Not likely.

"Promise?" Maes asked nervously.

"Cross my heart, hope to die, ram a blunt awl in my eye," Roy pledged, remembering the words that his friend had used on the afternoon of their first meeting.

Maes grinned. "Okay," he said, a little huskily. "Listen, I'm still gonna write you. Eli talked to his friend, that lady doctor, and she said if I send the letters to her, she'll see they get to you."

"Can't I write to you?" Roy pleaded.

"That'll be tough: we aren't always in the same place long," Maes said. Then he snapped his fingers. "But wait! I'll give you the name of the glassworks in South City. If you address the letters to Eli, they'll hold 'em for him, and I can get 'em in the winter. Got paper?"

Roy ran to fetch Davell's slate, and held it while Maes wrote.

"Remember to copy it down and keep it in a safe place," Maes warned. "I'll be mighty hurt if I don't get any letters at all."

"I will," Roy said. "I mean, I'll write to you. I don't write real good, but I'll do my best."

"Hey, when you're doing that, what more can you want?" Maes said cheerfully. "Listen, Roy, I'm really sorry abou—"

There was a bark like gunfire from the stairwell, and Maes frowned in confusion, squinting over Roy's shoulder into the darkened room.

"It's Hawkeye-sensei!" Roy hissed frantically. "He's coming upstairs! He..."

Maes was already slithering down off of the lean-to roof. He landed on the ground and vaulted over the fence not a moment too soon, for the alchemist burst into Davell's room, and the gas flared as he turned it up. Roy turned, almost dropping the slate out the window in his haste. His heart stopped beating, and he felt like his limbs were frozen. The alchemist was angry! Had he seen Maes? Would he...

"How did you open that window?" Hawkeye-sensei demanded. His voice was strained and breathless, and his words were pressured.

"I..." Roy cast about desperately for a plausible lie. "I was feeling dizzy, sir, and I thought that the fresh air might—"

"I didn't say _why_, I said _how_!" the alchemist snapped.

"I... I..." Unable to speak, Roy pointed helplessly at the array on the sill.

Before he could react, Hawkeye-sensei had him by the wrist. "Come with me," he ordered.

Roy strained against him just enough to set the slate with the precious address down on the bed, then trotted after the adult, who led him swiftly down the stairs and into the study the alchemist closed the door, then pressed his hands to the circle burned into it and activated the array. Then he took a piece of chalk from the desk, knelt by the door, and drew another within Roy's easy reach.

"Show me what you did," he said, his whole body taut with some unspeakable thought or emotion.

Nervously, Roy drew in a ragged breath. He didn't know what the alchemist wanted from him: whether he would be in more trouble if he succeeded, or if he failed. But there was part of him that desperately wanted to succeed: to feel that exhilaration and power again. He closed his eyes and concentrated. It unlocks the door, he thought firmly. It unlocks the door.

When that idea had crystallized into a certainty in his mind, he opened his eyes, took careful aim, and drove his palms against the chalk drawing. Again, the whirling vortex of energy that channelled itself through his body and into the wood. Again, for a glorious fraction of a moment that seemed even briefer than the last one, the feeling of grandiosity, of infinity... Then he was himself again. He turned the handle, and opened the door, looking back at the alchemist for approval.

He saw none. Hawkeye-sensei's face was pale, one hand pressed to his jaw as he stared at the boy.

"I felt it," he muttered, half to himself. "When you did it upstairs, I could feel... how long have you been doing this?"

"J-just tonight, sir, I-I-I sw-wear it," Roy stuttered, suddenly afraid again. "I promise I h-haven't done anything else..."

"Stop stammering, you little fool!" Hawkeye-sensei choked out. He moved to his chair and eased himself unsteadily into it, never for a moment taking his eyes off of Roy. "How did you know what to do?" he asked at last.

Roy had no answer to this. "You do it," he said in a tiny, timid voice. "It looked easy."

"_Easy_," the alchemist exhaled. He stared at Roy for a long moment, his expression hard and his eyes like two pale grey daggers. At last he spoke. "Go to bed," he said flatly.

Roy knew better than to hesitate. He retreated into the hall, and hurried up the steps. His knees began to shake as he reached the bad step, but somehow he managed to make it back into Davell's room before they gave out entirely. He sat for a moment in the middle of the floor, quaking with anxiety and confusion and a strange enervation that was beginning to wash over him in waves. When he felt able, he crawled across the floor and managed to pull himself onto the bed. He moved the slate to the bedside table, and then huddled under the blankets.

When at last he fell asleep, he dreamed of darkness that stretched out, deeper and deeper into eternity, at once encompassing and obliterating everything else in the universe.

_discidium_

While Roy Mustang wandered in uneasy dreams, Mordred Hawkeye sat staring at the door to his study. So the boy had the makings of an alchemist. This development was unexpected. That that skinny, skittish, feral child had worked it out by himself was nothing short of astonishing. That he found it "easy" was a little embarrassing.

Mordred himself had been talented, certainly. As a boy, he had shown a keen interest in science and an aptitude for study. His mother had suggested that they seek out an alchemist to take him on, and his father had laid out considerable capital in securing a prestigious apprenticeship for him. The first two months had been hell. Mordred had been fifteen, sure of himself and eager to prove his worth to his demanding sensei. He had studied, and struggled, and pounded his pillow in frustration every single night... and it had taken him almost three weeks to manage even the simplest transmutation. It was not that the concept was difficult. It was the intense concentration, the ability to block out anything and everything that was going on around you, that was the hurdle on which many would-be alchemists stumbled. A hurdle that Roy Mustang hardly seemed to have noticed.

Of course, he was a silent, brooding child. Mordred had often suspected that there was a strong mind in there somewhere, hidden under the layers of uneducated ignorance, animal instinct, and absurd protectiveness. Though he still read poorly, he had an aptitude for mathematics, and would soon be ready to take on simple algebra problems and rudimentary geometry. He was certainly intelligent, and if tonight's display was more than a fluke, he had the ability to focus his intelligence.

More startling still was the power of the boy's focus. Mordred had sensed it: the disruption of the fabric of the universe when the boy had opened the upstairs window. It was not something that was easy to describe. Alchemists had a sixth sense: they could almost taste the work of a fellow artist, and he had tasted it tonight. The boy had an innate talent that, if appropriately nurtured and adequately tended, might prove promising.

Mordred shook of the thought. That was ridiculous. The boy was only eight: most students did not touch anything remotely resembling alchemy until they were approaching the age of apprenticeship. In any case, he was far too busy with his work to think about taking a pupil.

And yet it was tempting, decidedly tempting. Mordred had had students before: local lads with an aptitude for study and an interest in alchemy. None of them had amounted to anything. They had learned a few cheap parlour tricks, perhaps some basic constructions, and then they had moved on to proper apprenticeships as tradesmen or professionals. Mordred had always wanted to have one true pupil, who would follow in his footsteps; someone to whom he could pass his vast stores of knowledge. Someone he could trust with his legacy.

At one time, he had pinned such hopes on Davell, but it had quickly become obvious that the boy had neither the dedication nor the intelligence required for such advanced studies. Had he lived, Mordred was not certain what path his life would have taken, but it would never have been alchemy. There was more of his grandfather the miller in him than there was of his mother's keenly brilliant (if a little odd) military father, or his sire's scientific mind.

As for Riza... Mordred cast his eyes around the room with its dusty shelves, its crumpled papers and fruitless sketches, the scrolls and journals and disintegrating texts. Riza deserved better than this. She was meant to be married to a powerful man, one whom she could love and guide. She was meant to live a quiet, peaceful, happy life, free from the discontent of research, the fear of military interference, the darkness that lurked deep within Mordred's heart and reminded him that he served his art because he was driven to do so, and not because it gave him any joy. No, he could not inflict this upon his beloved daughter.

But Mustang. He had a gift. He was obviously curious, and evidently had no fear of experimentation. If he could only get past his self-effacing timidity, he would make a fine student.

Of course, before he could undertake any such studies, he had to become a stronger reader. That was the first priority. His aptitude for mathematics could be nurtured and turned to an advantage, and he could learn the basics of drafting, too. Also, he needed a grounding in Greek and in Latin. Then, in a year or two, when he had mastered these skills, he could perhaps be introduced to some of the fundamentals of alchemy.

Yes, Mordred thought. The boy had potential, and given the right tools he might actually amount to something.


	44. A Special Day

_Note: Excerpts from "Meno" by Plato. Translated to the English by W.H.D. Rouse._

**Chapter 44: A Special Day **

"'_Please relax at least one little tittle of your mast-er-y, and give way so far that we may use a hyp... hie-pp-o-thee-sis... hiepotheesis? to work from, in considering whether it can come by teaching or in some other way,_" Roy read haltingly. "_I mean by hiepotheesis what the g... geo-met...metricians often en-vie-say-juh...'_"

He looked up from the book in despair. "I can't do it!" he moaned.

Riza, who had been writing simple sentences on the slate, frowned. "Yes you can," she contradicted.

"I can't," Roy said. "It's too hard, and it doesn't make sense!"

"Papa said you can do it," Riza reproached.

Roy was not in the mood for a quarrel. He was tired and cross, and this stupid story about two men arguing was too hard to read. He couldn't even read all of the words, let alone understand what they were trying to say!

He looked at the stove, which was practically glowing with heat, and then out the frost-covered window. He wondered if winter would ever end. Rationally, he knew that it would, but subjectively, it seemed as if it had always been, and would always be, winter. He was tired of being cooped up in the house, but as he didn't have a coat, he couldn't go out. He wasn't even allowed to run the errands anymore: Hawkeye-sensei had to do it. He had thought Riza might share his frustration, but she seemed to take the season's restrictions in stride.

"I can do _my_ lessons," Riza said. She pushed the slate across the table. "See? It's my story."

Roy looked at the untidy, childish printing. "_The snow is cold_," he read. "_The snow is wite. The snow is in my yard. I hate the snow. I want a cookie_." He gave the slate back to her. "That's a very nice story," he said.

"I like it," Riza agreed contentedly.

Now that she was nearly five, Hawkeye-sensei was taking her education more in hand. He spent a good deal of time working with her, when he wasn't busy on his research or with Roy's lessons, and though the attention was hardly paternal the little girl seemed to thrive on it. Roy, who couldn't remember the time before Mrs. Hawkeye's illness when Riza had been her father's special pet, thought that this was the most notice that the alchemist had ever given his daughter, and he could see that it was good for Riza. Though still quiet, she was not so sombre, and she was less often frightened. The night terrors came less frequently – perhaps once a week – and the faint shadows had disappeared from under the little girl's eyes.

She picked up the slate pencil and started drawing pillowy mounds of snow next to her writing. Roy looked down at the book again and sighed.

Hawkeye-sensei didn't seem to understand how hard reading was. Even with the Second Reader, which contained stories and poems and historical anecdotes targeted at children, Roy had to struggle to translate the symbols into letters and the letters into words. With these new texts, which the alchemist had produced shortly after the incident with Maes at the window, he had to fight just to get a handle on the vocabulary. There was a large, dusty dictionary on the table, in which he was meant to look up the meanings of words that he didn't understand, but sometimes the definitions only confused him more.

"How are you making out?" Hawkeye-sensei asked, coming into the kitchen with an empty mug in his hand.

Roy waited for Riza to answer, and then realized that the question was directed at him. "I can't read it, sir," he said miserably.

"What do you mean, you can't read it? Of course you can read it!" the alchemist said brusquely.

Roy closed his eyes. "I mean I don't understand," he said.

"I see." The alchemist sat down next to him and picked up the book. "Ah," he said. "Can virtue be taught?"

"I don't know!" Roy cried in exasperation.

The alchemist fixed him with a firm glare. "That's because you're only halfway through," he said coldly. Then he appeared to repent. "Well, did you understand this part here, with the boy and the squares?"

"Yes," Roy said. Knowing that a summary was expected, he launched into it without needing to be prompted. "Socrates says that a square two feet by two feet has an area of four feet."

"Which is double the value of each side," Hawkeye-sensei agreed. "And then?"

"Then he asks the boy to draw a square that is double the area of the two-foot square."

"Eight feet," confirmed the adult.

"Yes, and the boy thinks that's easy. He draws a square four feet by four feet, but it comes out to have an area of sixteen feet," Roy said. "Four times four is sixteen."

"Which is not double the area of the last square."

"No," Roy said. "It's four times as much. So then Socrates talks about a rectangle, which is two feet by four feet and has an area of eight feet, and the boy reasons that a square would have three-foot sides to give an area of eight feet." He wrinkled his brow. Yes, he'd said all that right. It was hard to keep these numbers straight!

"And does it?"

"No."

"Well then," Hawkeye-sensei asked; "what's the area of the three-foot square?"

"Nine, of course," Roy said.

"Greater than eight."

The boy nodded.

"Do _you_ know how long each side would have to be to give you a square of eight feet?" asked the alchemist.

Roy had predicted that that question would be coming. He pointed to the scrap of butcher's paper on which he had done the square root calculation. "Two decimal eight three feet," he said. "Approximately. That's about two feet, ten inches."

"Very good," Hawkeye-sensei said approvingly. Then he cast a quizzical eye on the boy. "Is that the point that Socrates is trying to make?"

Yes, Roy thought saucily. But he said, "No."

"Well, then, what is it?"

Roy bit his lip, thinking carefully. "He wanted to show that the boy didn't know what he thought he knew," he said. "And now that the boy realizes he's wrong, he will go and learn the right answer. So even though he's confused, he's better off now than he was before Socrates confused him."

"I see," said Hawkeye-sensei soberly. "And what does that teach you about people in general, not just this geometrically challenged urchin?"

"Ah..." Roy considered the question. "That... that before we can learn something, we have to realize that we don't know it?"

"Precisely," said the alchemist. "Knowledge of our ignorance is the first step towards learning. That's a very important lesson, Roy."

"Yes, sir," Roy murmured.

"Good. You've got out of this one what I hoped you would." The alchemist sat back and put the book in front of Roy. "Now finish reading the dialogue."

"But you said that I've already got the point," Roy protested.

"Yes, you have, and the rest of it is really a lot of didactic posturing on an unimportant question," agreed Hawkeye-sensei.

"Then why do I have to read it?" Roy asked.

"Because for a nine-year-old, your literacy skills are absolutely abysmal," the alchemist told him. "It will do you good to get through the whole thing. Either read it, or scrub the kitchen floor. Your choice."

Roy rose, and started to round the table. The alchemist caught him by the arm. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"To scrub the floor," Roy said. It should have been obvious.

Hawkeye-sensei twisted in his seat and slapped the side of Roy's face sharply – not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to tell him that he had said something stupid.

"Don't be fresh with me, young man," he said. "Sit down and finish your reading."

Roy blinked, stunned by the injustice of this. "But you said..."

"I was being facetious. Sit down and read." The alchemist rolled his eyes in irritation. "Riza, let me see what you've done," he said.

"I wrote a story, Papa," Riza said softly. The slap had startled her, and now her crimson eyes were wary. She pushed her slate towards him.

He glanced at it. "You spelled 'white' wrong," he said. "There's an 'H' after the 'W' that gives it the breathy 'whuh' sound." He wiped away all of Riza's hard work with the side of his hand, picked up the slate pencil, and wrote the word properly. "Write it out twenty times," he said. "When I come back to check on you again, I expect you to know how to spell it."

With that he got up, put his mug in the sink, and left the room. Roy glanced up from his work at Riza, who was staring disappointedly at the almost-empty slate.

"It was a nice story," he told her. He wished that the alchemist had said that.

"No, it wasn't," Riza said miserably. "I spelled 'white' wrong."

_discidium_

Riza sat on the window seat in her cold bedroom, staring out into the broad, snowy expanses of the wide world beyond the house. She was tired of sitting in the kitchen, trapped inside with nothing to do but read, but she knew better than to complain. Papa would look annoyed if she did, and Roy would sigh wistfully and murmur, "Me, too." They didn't have coats: only Papa did. Papa said that they didn't need them because he could run the errands, and playing outside was a luxury. Riza wasn't sure what a "luxury" was, but she understood that that meant that she couldn't have it.

She was just glad that they had lots of wood to burn and good food to eat. Last winter was now a distant, nightmarish memory, but Riza recalled being cold and hungry and dirty. This winter was better. They had fresh bread instead of stale, meat almost every night, as long as Papa remembered to cook it, and as much milk as they wanted. Doctor Bella still came by for supper nearly every week, which was good because her cooking was better than Papa's, but now those weren't the only nights that the children had enough to eat.

Still, despite these blessings Riza couldn't help wishing that she could go outside. She was an active child despite her new subdued quietude, and she missed the freedom of her yard. She didn't understand, either, why she needed a coat to go out. After all, parts of the house were cold, and she didn't need a coat inside. And anyway, snow didn't look cold at all. It looked soft and fluffy and cozy, like newly-carded wool.

A familiar figure was coming up the street from the village. Even from a distance, Riza's keen eyes told her that it was Doctor Bella. She had her basket over one arm, even though it was the middle of the afternoon, and in the other she carried a large, squishy bundle. Eighteen months ago, Riza would have hurried downstairs to greet her. Now, however, she was an older and wiser child. Doctor Bella was a lovely lady, but sometimes when she came Papa would get angry and they would quarrel. So Riza sat still, ears straining to hear what was transpiring below.

She heard the door open, and though she could discern no words she heard the physician's voice, followed by Roy's. Then Doctor Bella called out, "Riza! Come downstairs!"

She sounded happy, and Riza hadn't heard Papa, so the little girl slid off of the window seat and descended to the corridor. The doctor was taking off her coat, smiling merrily.

"Why, don't you look pretty!" she exclaimed as Riza stepped off of the last step. "Turn around for me."

Riza pirouetted obediently, so that the bright blue skirt of her warm woollen dress billowed around her. She loved the frock with its bright brass buttons, but she was ashamed of her shabby old pinny. It was too short, and even though Roy had washed it for her just yesterday, it had grease spots on it that wouldn't come out... and a green 'sparergas stain from the time she had fed Roy out in the yard.

"Lovely!" Doctor Bella applauded. She looked slyly at Roy. "Is Hawkeye-sensei working in his study?" she asked. Roy nodded. "Good!"

The doctor handed him her basket, telling him to put it in the kitchen. "And let's go upstairs," she added in a hushed voice.

"That step is noisy," Riza warned before Doctor Bella could step on it. The lady smiled graciously and adjusted her stride to step over it. Riza gripped the banister and climbed after her, following the doctor into her bedroom. There, the adult laid the bundle on the bed, and Riza saw that it was a flour sack full of something floppy.

"What's that?" Roy asked curiously, coming up behind Riza.

"It's a secret," the doctor said, smiling; "just between us three."

She opened the sack. In it were several brown paper packages, but she didn't take those. Instead she lifted out a heap of snowy linen, and a small bundle of red flannel.

"Now," she said, looking at Roy; "I want you two to take these, and use them, and _don't_ tell Hawkeye-sensei. He'll never notice if we don't point it out to him.

She put some of the linen in front of Roy, and some before Riza. The little girl gasped in amazement. The doctor had brought new undergarments! There were drawers and undershirts for Roy, and petticoats, pantalets, and combinations for herself.

"Hawkeye-sensei doesn't want charity," Roy said, softly and almost regretfully. Riza's heart sank. Was this charity? She knew that charity was bad, but she wanted the new things. At the same time, though, she _didn't _want Papa to shout!

"It's not charity," Doctor Bella told him, and hope kindled anew in Riza's breast. "It's underwear."

Riza giggled into her hand. "Underwear" was a funny word!"

"Besides, if Hawkeye-sensei doesn't ask where they came from, you don't need to tell him."

Roy didn't look very certain, but Riza was. She didn't like her shabby, stained pantalets, and she couldn't even wear her old combinations anymore because they were too small and they hurt her between her legs. She hugged the pretty new ones to her chest and smiled.

"Thank you, Doctor Bella," she said softly.

"There's more," said the adult. She gave each of them a red flannel garment.

Riza unfolded hers and frowned in puzzlement. It looked like a shirt sewn to a pair of pants, and where the seat of the pants ought to have been there was a buttoned flap.

"What is it?" Roy asked.

"It's a union suit," Doctor Bella said. "You wear it under your clothes to keep you warm. Why don't you go and put it on right now?"

"Why?" Roy asked. "The kitchen is warm."

"I'm glad, but try it on anyway," Doctor Bella said. There was a secretive twinkle in her eyes. "You can change into some of the new drawers, too."

Roy looked a little sceptical, but he left the room. Doctor Bella turned to Riza, and started to help her undress. When she saw that she had no combinations on, the doctor clicked her tongue.

"Your papa has a good heart, love," she said ruefully; "but I think you'd be wearing flour sacks and men's stockings if I left it up to him."

Riza said nothing, though she knew that the lady probably expected her to. It was safer just to be quiet. She let the doctor remove her ragged pantalets and help her into the new underclothes. Over the combinations went the red union suit, which was soft and scratchy on Riza's arms and legs. Then on went her new pantalets, her stockings, and her dress, so that the long underwear could not be seen at all. Riza reached for her pinafore, but Doctor Bella stayed her hand.

"You don't need that," she said. "Now, let's go and find your papa."

She carried the sack, still heavy with its paper parcels, down to the kitchen, then went to talk to Papa in his study. Roy came in, and smiled cautiously at Riza.

"It's itchy," he said.

Riza knew that he meant the union suit, and she nodded.

Doctor Bella came back, followed by Papa. She nodded pointedly and nudged his arm. Papa cleared his throat before speaking.

"Today is a special day," he said. "Riza, do you know what today is?"

"Wednesday," Riza said firmly, certain that she was correct.

Papa smiled. He _smiled!_ "True," he allowed. "It is also February the seventh. Do you know what is special about February the seventh?"

Roy suddenly looked very excited: clearly the date meant something to him. Riza frowned pensively. Maybe it was a holiday. She only knew two holidays: Triumph Day and New Year's. She knew that New Year's only happened once a year.

"Is it Triumph Day?" she asked. Triumph Day celebrated the day when Amestris had become a united country with a Fuhrer and a stable government, over three hundred years ago.

"No, that's in November," Roy said. He was fairly bursting with excitement. "It's something else! Something better!"

Doctor Bella was smiling fondly at him. She looked so pleased that Riza felt a tiny stab of envy. Roy knew the answer 'cause he was older and smarter, and so the doctor was proud of him. As she sometimes felt when Papa praised Roy's schoolwork but not hers, Riza felt suddenly small and inadequate and utterly unimportant.

"I don't know," she whispered shamefacedly, staring down at her shoes.

"It's your birthday!" Roy exclaimed, unable to contain himself any longer.

"It _is_?" Riza said wonderingly, her discomfiture forgotten. She knew that she was supposed to have a birthday in the winter, and she knew that she had had one last year, but she had not expected it to come on a snowy Wednesday afternoon!

"Yes, it is!" Doctor Bella said. She drew a covered plate out of her basket, and lifted the lid to reveal a handsome cake sprinkled with powdered sugar and topped with candied violets.

Riza's eyes went wide. It looked like a cake from a picture book! Why, it was even prettier than the crumbly apple cake that Doctor Bella had brought for Roy's birthday!

The two children climbed onto their chairs, and Doctor Bella stuck tiny candles into the cake: one, two, three, four, five, for Riza was five years old today! Then Papa used his fire alchemy to light them, a little halo of sparks dancing around the cake for a moment. Riza drew in a deep breath, and blew all of them out, just like that! Everybody had a piece of the cake, which was so sweet that it seemed to melt in Riza's mouth.

"Now it's time for presents!" Doctor Bella said, and the brown packages came out of her flour sack.

The first one was a book, with pictures of beautiful ladies in long dresses, and tall, handsome men with sabres at their sides. Then Riza opened a bundle of handkerchiefs, with "R. H." embroidered on the corners, amid delicate whitework. They were a young lady's handkerchiefs, Doctor Bella said, because she was growing into a beautiful young lady.

"This next one," she said. "I was going to buy her a locket, Mordred, but I decided on these instead. She'll look quite as pretty in these as she would with a necklace: we girls must have our vanity, mustn't we, Riza?"

The package contained five new pinnies! They were fresh and white, and each one had something different embroidered at the neck: one had the moon and shooting stars, one had strawberries, one had periwinkles, one had a line of galloping horses, and the last had pretty curlicues in all the colours of the rainbow.

"Bella..." Papa growled in his Warning Voice.

"They're not clothes, Mordred: they're a vanity!" Doctor Bella said. "A girl's pinny is to make her look pretty."

"Thank you, Doctor Bella," Riza breathed. It was a good birthday!"

"I bought you this, Riza," Papa said. He handed her a brand new slate, and a slate pencil, all her own! "I thought you needed one."

"Thank you, Papa!" said the little girl, smiling enormously. Papa had remembered her birthday! She looked at her fresh black slate, and then at her new pinnies, which were so pretty, and long enough, and not shabby at all, and then at the beautiful book and the real, grown-up handkerchiefs, and she was so happy!

Roy reached into his pocket and held something out. It was wrapped in butcher paper and tied with twine.

"I made it," he said shyly.

Riza opened it carefully. It was a string of beads, each made of a dried pea or bean or lentil and painted a different colour. It was so bright and pretty. She slipped it over her head and smiled radiantly. "Thank you, Roy!" she said.

Her boy smiled back. "Happy birthday!" he exclaimed.

"That's not all," Doctor Bella said. "It wouldn't be a proper birthday without a toy!"

Riza's heart leapt. Not only all these lovely things, but a toy, too? She wondered what it could be!

Doctor Bella lifted the two largest packages out, and set one in front of each child. "I had to get one for Roy, too," she said; "so that you could both play together. Go ahead, open them!"

Riza tore into the paper with unwonted abandon. She gasped joyously. There, folded neatly, was a new coat of navy blue. With it there were mittens, a woolly hat, a veil and a muffler! She looked at Roy. He had a brown coat, with a hat and gloves and a long scarf – but no veil, of course, because he was a boy.

Doctor Bella was smiling, but Papa's happy face had creased into a scowl. "Isabella Greyson, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, I won't have charity in this house!"

Riza froze, feeling her buoyant mood dissipating as if before a mighty wind. There was going to be a fight! She felt frightened tears welling up in her eyes, and a lump of misery formed in her throat.

"Charity?" Doctor Bella laughed airily. "It's only a toy, Mordred. So they can play outside!"

"Playing outside is a luxury, sir," Roy said quietly, echoing Papa's oft-uttered jab. "Please can we keep them?"

Papa looked at him, momentarily stunned. His face cracked into an indulgent smile. "I suppose," he said. "After all, birthdays are all about luxuries, aren't they? But mind you take good care of them, and I'll expect you to take on the shopping again, my boy."

"Yes, sir!" Roy said eagerly. "Thank you, sir!"

Papa said nothing more, but cut himself a second piece of cake and carried it from the room. The children listened instinctively for the comforting noise of the study door closing.

"Now aren't you glad you put your union suits on?" Doctor Bella whispered conspiratorially. "You can go straight outside and play in the snow!"

Riza jumped off of her chair eagerly, waiting for the doctor to help her put on her new, warm coat that would allow her to leave the house and play in the yard. Though her face wore a restrained smile, her soul was singing. She could go outside! She could play in the snow!

It really was a wonderful birthday after all.


	45. As Needs Must

**Chapter 45: As Needs Must**

The telegram came one morning in March. Roy Mustang was bent over a page of algebra problems, working through them with a speed and efficiency that was the polar opposite of his reading. Riza, who had finished with her assignments for the day, was sitting quietly on the settee that Mordred had moved from the parlour to his study so that the two young scholars didn't have to use the hearth rug. She had been quiet for so long that Mordred half wondered if she had turned to stone. When the knock on the door sounded, the alchemist waited for Roy to hurry to answer it, but the boy did not seem to have heard.

Mordred considered barking an order at him, but he thought better of it, put down his pen, and moved into the hall himself. He opened the door, and there stood the postmaster's elder daughter. She was one of those unfortunate girls who had the look of a frightened doe: thin-faced, with wide, nervous eyes that seemed always to seek a route of escape.

"Mr. Hawkeye?" she said. She was breathless, having doubtless trotted from town on her father's command, and she held a yellow paper in her trembling hand. Mordred recalled a rumour that she had not been well since the birth of her dead child. He backed up.

"Come in," he said.

The girl shook her blonde head, holding out the paper. "A telegram, sir," she said.

Her face told him that she knew what it contained, and Mordred remembered that the telegraph operator was her guilty lover. His pulse quickening, he snatched the document and broke the seal.

It bore only two lines, written in the hasty gothic script of the operator who had taken the message. Mordred read them, his blood turning to ice.

_ Mordred, stop. Lian gravely ill, stop.  
Come all speed, stop. Grumman, stop._

The alchemist was hardly aware of the way that his breathing grew laboured, or the slow leeching of the colour away from his face. He could hardly see the pale young woman watching him with kind concern even as she fought to catch her own breath.

_Lian gravely ill, stop_. Ill? With what? How? She was in a hospital, surrounded by doctors. How could she have fallen ill?

"Sir? Mr. Hawkeye?" the Strueby girl said gently.

Mordred looked up. "Are you still here?" he commented hollowly. His mind was racing. He had to get to central. Surely, _surely_ there was enough money in the house to pay for third-class fare. Fare for one, he thought. The last time he had ridden the train to Central, travelling with his wife and son when Davell was five and Riza only a gleam in his eye, the fare for one adult had been two thousand _sens_. He could raise that much, surely. But who would look after the children? He couldn't leave them alone: they might burn the house down, and the voluntary fire brigade was useless without its leader...

"I think you ought to sit down, sir," the girl was saying. "Have a cup of tea, maybe? I'm sure she can't be so ill, sir. Don't be afraid."

The well-meaning platitudes were grating like a dull saw against Mordred's frayed nerves. "Go for the doctor, you fool!" he snapped.

"The doctor?" the girl echoed in bewilderment. "But isn't your wife in Central?"

"Not for Lian, for me!" Mordred said sharply. Bella. Bella would know what to do. He needed Bella. "Don't just stand there, go!"

"But sir, the t-telegram, it's fi-five _sens—"_

"_GO!" _Mordred roared, waving her away. She hesitated for a moment before running from the house, clutching her side as she loped back towards the village. The alchemist looked again at the telegram, the harbinger of what had become his darkest nightmare. Lian was ill, six hundred miles from home, and he was here, with two children to look after, a house he couldn't leave, no money for the fare... surely, _surely _there were two thousand _sens _somewhere in the house...

But his knees were weak, and his limbs were growing cold. He sank to the floor in the open doorway, staring at the yellow telegram, and fearing the worst.

_discidium_

It was there that Bella Greyson found him twenty minutes later, when she came hurrying away from a surgery full of mothers bringing their children to her monthly baby clinic, to be weighed and prodded and generally praised. The physician drew the stunned alchemist to his feet with firm, capable hands, and led him into the house.

"Roy?" she called out, thankful when the dark head appeared almost instantly around the study door. "Go and put on the kettle, love. Hawkeye-sensei needs some tea."

Riza appeared as Bella was guiding her father into the parlour, watching with enormous carmine eyes as the physician eased Mordred down onto the sofa and tried to prise the yellow card from his fingers.

"Bella," Mordred breathed numbly. "You came."

"Yes, I came," said the physician. "Let me see it, Mordred."

He released his hold, and she looked at the message. It was a bare skeleton of what the man needed to know: like all telegrams brief and to the point. There was no intimation of what sort of ailment Lian Hawkeye was suffering from, and the only indication of how serious it might be was the abrupt command: _come all speed, stop._

Roy came into the room, carrying the tea pot and an empty mug. Bella motioned to him to set them on the sideboard: surely the tea wouldn't be steeped yet.

"Mordred, talk to me," she urged gently. "You'll go to her, of course."

"Of course," the alchemist moaned. "How can I not? I think... I think there's money..."

"I'll lend you the money," Bella told him. "You can pay me back out of next quarter's stipend. The train to Central doesn't come until Friday, but if you take the night train to East City you can get on the express there. You can be there in two days."

"Three days..." breathed Mordred, clutching his head. "What if it's too late?"

"Don't talk like that," she scolded gently, sitting down next to him and gripping his shoulder. "Look: whatever it is has come on so quickly that this is the first chance Major Grumman had to write you. She can't be so sick that she'll fade before you get to her."

She motioned to Roy to pour the tea, and the boy obeyed, then gave her the cup and moved back. He edged over to Riza and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. The little girl said nothing, but pressed herself against her playmate, taking comfort from the contact.

"I'm going to pack some things for you," Bella said. "And then I want you to lie down and get some sleep before your journey. All right?"

"The children," Mordred mumbled, curling forward over the tea.

Bella looked at them. They couldn't go with him. Quite apart from the fact that the last thing Mordred needed right now was a pair of travelling companions to worry about, she didn't want Riza to wind up at the Central asylum, witnessing the clinical horrors that were commonplace there. Not only that, but if Lian truly was critically ill, the little girl should not have to watch her mother suffering.

"They'll stay with me until you get back," the physician said firmly. "Don't worry about the children. Roy, why don't you take Riza upstairs? Get together a few clothes for each of you, and any books or toys that you'd like to bring. You're going to spend a few days at my house. Won't that be nice?"

Neither child said a word. The boy nodded soberly, then herded Riza gently out of the room. They left not a moment too soon, for even before the gunshot-like bark of the bad step rang out, Mordred started to cry.

"I sent her away," he choked out. "I sent her away, and now—n-now she's ill..."

"Listen to me," Bella said firmly. She tried to lift his head, but he shrank away. "Mordred, listen!" He glanced up at her from under a curtain of hair. "This isn't your fault. You didn't make her ill in the first place, and you _certainly _didn't cause this sickness, whatever it is. Now, you have to stop this..." He buried his face in one hand, and she had to pluck the mug out of the other before his wrist could go limp and spill its contents. "You have to stop this and pull yourself together. Lian needs you, and that means that you have to be strong enough to get to her. Do you hear me? Mordred, do you hear me?"

He nodded miserably, raising his head and rubbing his hand across his eyes. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "And you'll take the children?"

"Don't worry about them," said Bella. "All you need to worry about is getting yourself to Central."

Mordred shook his head wretchedly. "What will I do?" he breathed. "How will I live, if she dies?"

To that, Bella had no answer.

_discidium_

Riza was fast asleep in the doctor's bed, but Roy sat on the chair before the dressing table, staring at his reflection. Riza was too small to really understand what was happening: the explanation that her father was going to Central to visit her mother had been adequate for her. Roy, however, knew that Mrs. Hawkeye was ill, and that Hawkeye-sensei had to go in case she was dying.

Roy wasn't sure what he thought about death. He knew that his parents were dead, and that meant that they couldn't take care of him. He knew that Davell was dead, and that meant that Roy could sleep in his room and use his slate and his schoolbooks. He didn't know what it would mean if Mrs. Hawkeye was dead. He remembered so little about her, except that she had hated him and hurt him and tried to hurt Riza. He didn't want her to die, though, because she was Riza's momma and the little girl loved her, and yet... she had been gone so long that he wasn't sure what difference her death would make to their lives.

A door opened somewhere downstairs. Doctor Bella was back. She had left Roy to read Riza her bedtime story while the physician took Hawkeye-sensei to catch the train. He would travel to East City tonight, and then move on to Central tomorrow.

The doctor came up the stairs and peered into the room. She took in Riza, curled against her pillows, and then looked at Roy. She held her hand out to him, and the boy went to her, allowing her to lead him from the room and into the sitting room across the hall. The doctor sat down on the sofa, and lifted Roy into her lap.

"How's my brave young man?" she asked. Her voice sounded sad and tired.

"Very well, thank you," Roy replied softly. "Is... is Mrs. Hawkeye going to die?"

"Oh, love," sighed Doctor Bella. "I don't even know what's wrong with her. Hawkeye-sensei will send us word when he knows more."

"How long will he be gone?" Roy queried.

"I'm afraid I don't know that, either," said the physician; "but you two will stay here as long as he's away. So you and I need to talk."

She adjusted her hold on him so that they could look one another in the eye. "I know you're just a boy," she asked; "but I'm afraid you're going to have to help me take care of Riza."

"I take care of her when Hawkeye-sensei is working," Roy assured her.

"Yes, but this will be different," the doctor said. "You see, I'm not home all the time as Hawkeye-sensei is. Sometimes I have to go out to visit the sick people and take care of them, and if that happens, then you and Riza will be alone here. Mostly during the day, but if there is an emergency I might have to go out in the night, too. Tomorrow I'll take you to meet Gerd, who works at the livery stable. He's my good helper, and if you ever need anything while I'm out on a call, you can go to him. I'm going to tell Mrs. Parsons across the street that you two are staying here, too. She's a good lady, and if I'm gone at mealtimes, you can ask her to come and cook something for you."

"I know how to make cold food," Roy said. "I make breakfast and dinner lots of times."

"Yes, I know that," the doctor sighed. "You're much too old for your age, my love. I'm sorry to force these responsibilities on you, but I can't see any other way. We must do as needs must."

"I can do it, Doctor Bella," Roy promised. "I'm good at looking after Riza."

"That you are. Now, I'm going to make you a bed on the sofa, here. Is that all right? I'll sleep with Riza, so you needn't worry about her being lonely. If I _am_ ever called out, I'll wake you so that you can lie down with her. All right?"

"Yes, ma'am," Roy agreed. He got off of the doctor's lap and watched her prepare a comfortable-looking place for him to sleep. He considered what she had said. _We must do as needs must_, he thought. It was a fancy way of saying something that he had learned when he was younger than Riza. You did what you had to do in order to survive.

They would survive, he decided firmly. Whether Mrs. Hawkeye died or not, whether Doctor Bella was here or out on a call, he would make sure that he and Riza were fine. He would do what he had to do. _As needs must_, he thought.

_discidium_

It was long after sunset when the so-called express, which in fact seemed to stop at every town, hamlet and watering hole in the Eastern province, finally rolled into Central's grand Memorial Station. Mordred collected his battered carpetbag from the rack above his head, stretched his thin legs, and joined the queue in the corridor, moving to disembark.

The platform was practically deserted, and the arriving passengers quickly dispersed across it like ants on bare cobblestone. Some had loved ones waiting for them. Some, awaiting an outgoing train, sought out benches or the ragged pretzel-peddling urchins who wandered up and down the length of the station hoping to turn a few _sens_' profit before heading back to their tenements for the night. Most vanished through the station doors and out into the city beyond. Mordred hesitated, staring around the platform. He was unsure where he was going, for he did not know the city well. He would have been able to find his way to his wife's childhood home on the fringes of the Presidential District, but that would have been useless. He dimly remembered Lian telling him that her father had sold it not long after Riza's birth. He had no idea where the major was living now.

Perhaps if he went to Military Headquarters, someone there could tell him. More likely he would spend the night huddled outside the gates, waiting for morning in the hope that his father-in-law would turn up for work. Finding the hospital might be easier, but they would surely not admit visitors in the middle of the night...

"Mr. Hawkeye?" An acne-pocked youth in the uniform of a private came trotting towards him. He wore his dark hair in a close crew cut, and his eyes were so narrow that they almost seemed closed. He was tall and gangling, with the hard, compact muscles of one accustomed to manual labour. Despite his broad, prominent cheekbones and the formal way in which he carried himself, he looked entirely too young to be dressed as he was. "Are you Mr. Hawkeye?"

"Yes," Mordred said, frowning in suspicion. How did the kid know that?

"You look just like the Lt. Colonel described," the private said. "Can I take your bag, sir? I have the trap waiting."

He reached for the carpetbag, but Mordred pulled away. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Lt. Colonel Grumman sent me, sir. I'm his new aide: I came with the promotion." He saluted crisply. "Private Falman at your service, sir."

"Promotion?" Mordred said. He didn't know anything about a promotion.

"Yes, sir. It went through last week, sir. Didn't you... oh." The boy's expression fell. "I suppose he didn't have time to write, sir, before his daughter took ill."

"How did you know I was coming on this train?" Mordred pressed suspiciously. "I didn't wire ahead."

"The Lt. Colonel wanted to make sure someone was here to meet you," the private said. "He figured this would be the earliest train you could possibly be on, so he sent me here to stake out the station until you showed. I'm just glad you were on _this_ train, or I could have been waiting for a long time."

"And you're supposed to take me..."

"To the asy – to the hospital," said Falman. "He's been there for three days. This way, sir. Just follow me."

Mordred did so, but inwardly he was seething. Grumman had no business telling snot-nosed military hounds where Lian was and why. He followed the boy through the station and into the street, where a sedate black military trap was waiting, a pair of matched geldings pawing the dirt next to the hitching post. Mordred climbed onto the seat, settled his baggage in his lap, and forced himself to stare calmly ahead as the private climbed up beside him.

They made good progress through the empty streets, the well-trained military horses only balking twice: when a trolley driver blew his whistle at an intersection, and when a noisy motorcar rumbled past, carrying a man and two scantily-clad women to some late-night party. Mordred frowned disapprovingly at the debauchers.

At last they turned into a dark, deserted street, where a high stone wall was broken by a wrought-iron gate. A doorwarden came out of his hut and shone an electric torch into their faces.

"Private Falman," said the boy. "With Mr. Hawkeye to see Lt. Colonel Grumman's daughter."

The man behind the gate nodded, and dragged it open for them. The horses hurried up the short drive, and Falman hopped down to tie them to the hitching post. Mordred alighted, and without waiting for the boy's instructions strode up the steps and hammered on the heavy front door of the imposing, institutional building.

A suspicious-looking nurse opened the door just far enough to peer out. Mordred fixed her with a cold eye. "Let me in, woman," he said. "I'm Mordred Hawkeye, and my wife is Lt. Colonel Grumman's daughter."

"I'm sorry, sir, but visiting hours are between ten and six every day," she said.

Private Falman hurried towards the door. "Matron, please: the Lt. Colonel's orders were very clear."

"Oh, he's with you?" the woman said. She moved back, opening the door. "Go right through."

The foyer was large and vaulted. There was a desk to one side, and three hallways moving off into uncertain shadows, each barred from public access by heavy iron grates. The nurse unlocked the western door, holding it open to admit the two men.

"This way, sir," said the private. "Her room is this way."

Mordred followed him past the sputtering electric lights, reflecting morosely that he preferred the gentle ambiance of gas. As he rounded a corner, his eyes fell on a bowed figure seated on a bench in the corridor. A moment passed before the man realized he was not alone. He looked up. It was Grumman.

"Mordred!" he gasped, getting to his feet and hurrying forward. His face was haggard and his usually well-trimmed moustache was unkempt and drooping. He turned to the soldier, who had snapped into a sharp salute. "Thank you, Vato. You can go home now."

"Yes, sir!" Private Falman said. He turned crisply on his heels and marched away.

Mordred restrained himself until the boy was out of earshot, then grabbed Grumman's arm. "Where is she? How is she?" he demanded, shaking the soldier harshly. Behind the grate in the door of the room nearest to him, someone laughed nasally.

"The nurse is just changing her sheets and gown," Grumman said distractedly, nodding over his shoulder at the door next to which he had been sitting. "She... she..."

To Mordred's surprise and consternation, the older man seized the lapels of his suit jacket and buried his face against the alchemist's chest, choking on his wretched sobs.


	46. Flammis Acribus

_Note: Excerpts from "Confutatis" from "Requiem in D-minor", W.A. Mozart._

**Chapter 46: Flammis Acribus (Flames of Woe)  
**

By the time the nurse opened the door, Grumman had regained his composure sufficiently to stand without assistance, though not enough to allow him to elaborate upon the cause of his distress. The sight of the white-uniformed woman drove from Mordred's mind any thought of interrogating his father-in-law. He brushed past the nurse and into his wife's chamber.

It was more like a prison cell than a hospital room: windowless and bare with stark white tiling on the walls as well as the floor. It stank of vinegar and vomit, and was lit by a single naked bulb high upon the wall. Someone had thrown a red handkerchief over the light to mute the harsh electrical illumination into a dingy crimson glow that afforded just enough visibility that Mordred could make out his surroundings.

There was a clothes-press in one corner. It obviously doubled as a desk, for on top of it sat a pad of paper and the photograph of Davell that Lian had taken away with her, and next to it stood a straight-backed wooden chair. In the corner behind the door stood a washbasin and a portable commode. Most of the floor space was at the moment occupied by a large tin washtub three-quarters full of water and crushed ice. Next to it was a heap of soiled and sodden linen.

Then Mordred's eyes fell on the narrow bed against the far wall, and all else was forgotten.

On the thin mattress, covered only by a well-worn sheet, lay Lian. She was wearing a tatty white hospital gown that clung damply to her body, revealing all too brutally how much weight she had lost since last he had seen her. She was trembling violently, and she kept trying to curl herself into a ball. She couldn't do it, however, because she was strapped to the bed: broad leather bands crossed her chest, her hips and her claves, keeping her flat on her back. Only her forearms were free, and her thin hands plucked fretfully at the sheet covering her abdomen.

Her face was pale even in the soft red light, and bright spots of fever crested her prominent cheekbones. Her lips were cracked and crusted with scabs, and her crimson eyes – once so keen and beautiful – were glazed with febrile torment and sunken deeply into hollow purple shadows. Beads of sweat stood out on her brow, and her teeth were clicking frantically with the force of the chills that shook her. Most unnerving of all, her hair, her soft, silken, flowing hair that had always been her great pride and her crowning glory, was gone. It had been inexpertly shorn away to a thin fuzz that clung wetly to her skull.

Mordred couldn't move. He was numb with horror, guilt, and a cold, bitter denial, unable to do anything but stare at the fettered spectre before him... at the pallid, broken creature that had once been his beautiful young bride...

Grumman seemed to have no such compunctions. Herding Mordred through the doorway so that he could pass, he strode to the bed. He brushed the side of Lian's face tenderly. She moaned softly, like a kitten, and lolled her head in towards his touch.

"There, dearest," Grumman soothed, no hint of his breakdown in the corridor filtering into his calm, consoling voice. "You're all clean and dry again. You'll warm up soon."

Lian mumbled something incoherent, and Mordred looked at the washtub full of ice-water. Surely they hadn't put her into _that_?

"Good girl. Can you hear me, Lian? My brave little girl, can you hear me?"

"Gah..." Lian breathed, her feverish eyes struggling to focus on his face and failing wretchedly. "Go... Father..."

"That's right!" Grumman gasped, sounding dangerously near tears and yet strangely delighted. "That's right, it's Father. I'm here, darling. I'm—"

"Want... Father," Lian continued, trying to pull away from him but unable to do so because of her weakness and the restraints. "Want my father..."

Grumman slumped a little, deflating. "I'm here, my baby," he sighed resignedly. "Whether you know it or not, I'm here."

Lian let out a small choking noise, and a trickle of tears poured from the corner of her eye. "No... no..." she mumbled, then fell silent.

Mordred found his voice at last. "W-Why is she bound?" he demanded, turning on the nurse. "Free her at once!"

"They can't, Mordred," Grumman said miserably. "She has to lie flat. If she doesn't..."

"We've taken samples of her spinal fluid," the nurse said. "If she rolls onto her side, her brain could herniate. It could kill her."

"Samples..." Mordred choked. The woman was talking as if Lian was a specimen, something on which to perform experiments. She was his wife! His _wife_! What had they done to his wife? "Where is the doctor?" he demanded. "Why isn't he here?"

"Doctor Bolton is busy," the nurse said. "He's responsible for all the patients on this ward, and—"

"You go and fetch him!" Mordred cried, repenting his raised voice immediately as Lian flinched and started to sob feebly. "Go and fetch him," he repeated, more quietly.

"He'll be along when he does his rounds," the nurse told him crisply.

"That's not good enough!" Mordred snapped. "I want to talk to him right now. Right now, do you hear?"

The woman's chin jutted obstinately forward. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that," she said coldly. "And if you don't calm down I'm going to call the orderlies and have you removed from the premises."

Grumman stood up. "Go and fetch Doctor Bolton," he said, neither angry nor especially politely. "That's an order, nurse."

She looked like she wanted to argue, but she left the room. Mordred's eyes riveted back to his wife. "W-What's wrong with her?" he croaked.

"An infection," Grumman whispered. "Men... something. An infection in her brain." His voice cracked a little, and her stared resolutely over Mordred's shoulder. "She was having headaches. I thought... I thought she just wanted more attention. I was annoyed... but then three days ago she went feverish, and she's been getting worse ever since."

Lian moaned again, her hands twitching and groping for something that she couldn't seem to find. "Red..." she murmured.

Mordred looked at the covered light bulb. "Why _is_ the light red?" he asked.

"She can't bear the bright lights," Grumman explains. "The red is easier on her eyes."

"No... red..." Lian repeated. "No... mo... red..."

Suddenly, Mordred was at her side, his hand pressed to her cheek. She wasn't talking about the light: she was calling to him! "Lian!" he breathed, trying not to cry. "Lian, I'm here."

She was so hot: despite the cold sweat and the convulsive, bone-deep shivering, her skin was warmer than Mordred had imagined human flesh could be. He pressed his hand against her, willing her to respond to his touch, to recognize him as she had not recognized her father.

"Mordred," she mumbled thickly, the syllables still blurred, the consonants muddled. "I want... Mordred..."

"I'm here, Lian. I'm right here," he repeated desperately, fighting back his tears.

"It's the fever," Grumman said. "She doesn't... always know who's with her."

Mordred bent lower, and in a moment of impulsive longing, pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her deeply on her sore, dry lips. Lian gasped a little, but neither fought him nor reciprocated. As he drew back, though, she was squinting up at him, trying to make her eyes focus.

"Mordred?" she breathed, recognition in her weak, fevered voice.

"Yes," he almost sobbed. "I'm here."

"Mordred," she sighed. "Mo-rrrrr-dred..."

She went limp against the pillows, her breathing suddenly deep and steady. For a moment terrified that she was slipping from life, Mordred looked frantically at Grumman, but the older man was suddenly almost relieved.

"She's sleeping," he breathed. "She hasn't slept naturally in fifty-seven hours."

The alchemist stroked his wife's poor shorn head, his fingers running across the ruined remains of her hair. "Why did they..."

"The fever," Grumman said regretfully. "They had to cool her down. She can't seem to manage it herself. And they use the tub..." He gestured vaguely, apparently unable to vocalize the suffering he had witnessed. "My poor child," he croaked.

Mordred wasn't ready to leave his wife's bedside. The feel of her torrid skin beneath his fingers was frightening, but also oddly consoling. He had half expected to find her cold, lost to death. Alive, even so gravely ill, she was a priceless treasure. As long as she lived, there was hope that she would recover. As long as she lived, he had not come too late.

"The boy... he said you've been here for three days."

"I couldn't leave her," Grumman said, visibly warring with his emotions. "She's so frightened. She doesn't... she doesn't really understand why she's ill."

The door opened, and the nurse came back in, followed by a white-coated man with a narrow, pointed chin and a narrow, pointed goatee. Startled and embarrassed to be caught in such a vulnerable position by a stranger, Mordred pulled away from Lian's sleeping form and got to her feet.

"You're the doctor?" he demanded.

"Yes, I am," the man said coolly. "And you must be the husband."

There was a fine note of disdain in his voice, and it made Mordred bristle. "Tell me what's wrong," the alchemist demanded. He gestured at Grumman. "He said... an infection?"

"Meningitis," said the physician. "An inflammation of the lining of the brain. In her case, it's caused by a bacterium. I don't know which one: we've sent samples of her spinal fluid to the hospital for analysis."

"What's the treatment? What can you do for her?"

"I assure you, Mr. Hawkeye, that everything that can be done is being done," said Bolton. The subtle disdain was still present. "Cold baths for the fever, morphia for the pain, and restraints to prevent her from tossing about after this morning's taps."

"And she'll... she'll get better?" Mordred croaked. He hated himself for this weakness, for putting himself so much into the power of another person, but he couldn't help it. He had to know.

"There is a chance of a full recovery," the doctor said.

"A chance?" Mordred echoed desperately. He glanced at Grumman, but saw no comfort there. "And if she doesn't?"

"If she is not strong enough to fight off the infection, Mr. Hawkeye," the doctor said, his tone gentling by a fraction; "then I am afraid it is quite likely that your wife may die."

_discidium_

The children were playing quietly with Riza's tin soldiers when Bella closed the surgery and brought her used instruments into the kitchen for sterilization. They seemed contented enough – subdued, but contented. The physician was glad, but she feared that such serenity would not last.

A telegram had finally come from Mordred. It had been four days since his departure, and Bella had been beginning to fear for his safety. When at last he _had_ sent a message, it was necessarily brief, but fortunately explicit. _Meningitis, stop, _it had read. _High fever, delirium, stop. Doctors fear worst, stop. Waiting, hoping, stop._

Bella had not yet told the children. She was not sure how to tell them. How could she make a five-year-old understand that her mother, six hundred miles away, was ill... so ill that she might die. Riza knew Lian was unwell, for that was why she had had to be sent to Central in the first place. But would she understand –_ could_ she understand that this was difference. Melancholia and delusionary behaviour were not fatal, if suicide could be averted, but meningitis... Bella had not seen a case since her last year at the National College of Medicine, but she remembered the patient clearly. It had begun as headaches, hardly worthy of mention. Then the nucal rigidity: the pain in the neck that prevented a patient from nodding. Flexion of the knees upon lifting of the head. High fever, a rash on the torso. Delirium, rigors, then seizures and at last death.

True, it did not always progress in that fashion. A lucky few, the young, healthy adults, could fight it off. Their fevers would break, they would sleep for hours on end, day after day, and then they would convalesce; weak and achy and weary, but alive. Lian was young: she was only thirty-two. But after nearly two years in a mental hospital, was she healthy? Did she even have the will to live? Mordred's telegram was certainly not a beacon of hope.

It was not for Lian that Bella was afraid. She knew the pain of a lost child, and there were times when she had thought that Lian might be happier dead. But Mordred. Alchemy was his passion, and his work was his purpose, but Lian was his soul. Bella had known that the moment she had seen the two of them together. She had filled a void in his heart that no other woman, nor any friend, nor even his beloved art could seal. She had become his idol, his reason to live. If she died, what _would_ be left? Could he hold on for his research and for the children?

"All right, now, I'd like to see what you two studied today," the doctor said, putting her pot full of instruments on to boil and sitting down at the table. "Who would like to go first?"

Roy looked a little apprehensive, but Riza picked up her slate. It was covered in the addition problems that she had been given that morning. "See?" she said. "I did them all."

"Very good!" Bella praised. She picked up the slate pencil and began to leave checkmarks next to each problem. "Two plus two is four. Three plus four is seven. Six plus two is eight. Five plus one is six. Uh-oh. Riza, how much is two plus three?"

The little girl thought about it. "Five," she said.

Bella smiled, rubbing out the lopsided number six. "Let's just fix it, shall we?" she asked, writing in a five instead. She gave that problem a check as well.

Riza looked shocked. "Didn't I get it wrong?" she asked.

"Not this time," Doctor Bella said brightly. "Just the first time. As long as you can do it in the end, that's what's important. She read out the last few problems, and then drew a smiling butterfly in the corner of the slate, crowning her sketch with the words _Great Job!_ "Well done, Riza! I'm very proud of you."

The little girl smiled cautiously, flushed with pleasure. "Thank you, Doctor Bella," she murmured.

"Very nice. We'll work on your reading right away. Roy, let me see your algebra."

Roy slid both the slate and the copy of _Primary Mathematics_ that Bella had bought for him yesterday towards her. She turned to the back where the solutions to the problems were, and checked his work quickly.

"Well done!" she praised. "It's perfect. Now, what about the reading that Hawkeye-sensei gave you?"

Roy glanced guiltily at his copy of Plato's _Select Works_. "I... didn't start yet," he mumbled.

"Why not?" she asked.

"I don't like it," Roy said, speaking to the tabletop. "It's too hard."

"I agree, it's a hard book for a boy your age. Why does Hawkeye-sensei want you to study it, anyway?"

"He says my literacy skills are abysmal," Roy recited.

"Surely that can't be true," Bella contradicted. "And anyway, if it were he would have given you something easy, not something hard. There must be a reason that he wants you to read Plato."

"He said..." Roy hung his head. "He said if I'm smart enough and work hard, he'll teach me alchemy," he whispered.

Bella smiled. "Did he?" she asked. "Why, that's wonderful! I know you'd make a good alchemist." Not only that, she thought, but having a student to whom he could pass his knowledge might give Mordred a focus for his energies if Lian should die. "I'll tell you what. Why don't we forget about Plato, and we'll talk about chemistry. If you go into the surgery, there's a big blue book called _Elements of Life_. Bring it in here, and when I'm finished with Riza's reading, we can look at it together."

As Roy left the room, Bella picked up the First Reader and opened it to a page midway through. She set the book down in front of Riza. "Here, we are, love," she said contentedly, curling her arm around the little girl's back. Riza leaned into the casual embrace and wriggled in anticipation. "Let's see you read this."

As she listened to the little girl's halting but fundamentally sound reading, Bella reflected wistfully that _this_ must be what it was like to be a mother. It was quite the most marvellous thing in the world.

_discidium_

On the sixth day since Mordred's arrival in Central, Lian's fever dropped. She was still warm, but the chills had abated and she lay quietly in the bed. The restraints, which had been removed five days ago when the danger from the lumbar puncture had passed, were back in place now, for a fresh sample had been taken that afternoon in quite the most barbaric ritual the alchemist had ever witnessed.

Lian had been rolled onto her side, a nurse holding her knees up to her chest so that her back was curved. Then a doctor, who had introduced himself as the neurosurgeon who performed the asylum's lobotomies, had opened the back of the hospital gown, and swabbed the lower part of Lian's spine with an iodine solution. He had removed a syringe from the brown autoclave paper. It was unlike any syringe Mordred had seen. The needle was thicker, and it had no plunger, but only an open barrel. Then the man had palpated Lian's spine, and driven the needle into the space between two of her vertebrae. A yellowish fluid had dripped out, and the man had caught it in a small test tube.

Mordred had very nearly prayed that it would be clear, showing that the infection was gone, but the doctor had held the vial to the light and pronounced it cloudy. Lian was still ill.

She was still ill, but she looked much better today. Her face was relaxed in slumber, and her hands had ceased their fretful twitching. She knew who he was, though she uttered nothing more than his name and, on occasion, "You're here..." Not once, however, had she called for Davell, and when her father had left this morning to stop in at Headquarters, she had recognized him.

Now Mordred was sitting on the unyielding wooden chair, staring at Lian's sleeping form and wondering if, perhaps, she wasn't healing after all. She looked so much better, and she was peaceful, and the fever was coming down. Perhaps... perhaps she would be all right after all.

"Mordred?" The door to the room opened, and Grumman came in. The two men had been alternating shifts of sitting with Lian, Mordred taking the days, and Grumman the nights. It was strange, the alchemist thought. Suddenly he seemed much closer to his father-in-law, though in reality he had seen very little of him on this visit. It was as if their shared worry and the determination that Lian should survive was binding them together.

"She's sleeping," the alchemist said. "She's better today."

The soldier nodded. "You look exhausted. I'm here early, so I want you to leave now."

Mordred shook his head. "I can't," he said. "She... I wouldn't be able to sleep, anyhow."

"I know that," Grumman said. "I think you need a distraction. Vato is out front. He's going to take you to the Symphony Hall. The University Choraliers are performing tonight as part of their course on iconoclastic Amestrian composers, and I know Vato would love to go. I think you'd enjoy it."

"You want me to go to a _concert_?" Mordred said in disbelief. "While Lian is..." He gestured helplessly at the bed.

"That's exactly what I want," Grumman said. "It'll be good for you to relax a little. To focus on something other than Lian for a while. You need to take care of yourself, too, Mordred. Now hurry up. Vato will take you by the apartment first, so that you can change."

It was preposterous, Mordred thought. He couldn't leave Lian to listen to some ridiculous music! It was selfish, and wrong, and... and yet, he did need to spend some time away from this room. Away from the smell of sickness and the aura of despair. Lian was so much better today. Perhaps, just perhaps it wouldn't hurt to leave a little early.

"What are they singing?" he asked.

"Oh, some old religious music," Grumman said. As Mordred grimaced, he raised his hand. "It's not as bad as it sounds. It was written by quite a gifted composer about a hundred years ago, in the old form. It's a requiem."

A requiem. A Death Mass of the forgotten and outmoded cult that had once held sway over most of the civilized world. Part of Mordred's mind was repulsed by the idea, and part of him was curious. The death rituals of a people lost to the ravages of time, now put up on a stage and prettily lit for the enjoyment and analysis of modern intellectuals. Intriguing.

"All right," he said. "I'll go."

Grumman smiled. "Good. Don't worry about Lian. I'll stay with her."

The matter was settled, then. Mordred gathered up his greatcoat and left the room.

_discidium_

"_Confutatis! Maledictis! Flammis acribus addictis! (Flammis acribus addictis!) Voca me cum benedictis!_"

The music flowed over Mordred in waves, captivating and yet elevating all at once. He was scarcely aware of Private Falman beside him, or of the people around him or the choir in front of him. The music seemed to possess him, stirring him to a strange, private ecstasy that he had never before experienced outside of his work. The music was like his tendrils of fire, reaching out and dancing through the air, swift and deadly and gorgeous. The words had a power to them that he had never expected them to have. Perhaps there had been something to this old religion after all, if it had produced music like this. Mordred was a strict atheist: there was only power beyond men because they had not yet learned to grasp and use it. And yet, in this music, he could hear memories of a deep and ancient passion. It was unlike anything he had ever heard.

"_Voca me cum benedictis! Voca me cum benedictis!_"

He closed his eyes and let the sounds bear him far away, into a dark and terrible, yet wondrous place. It was the elusive memory, the moment of clarity that an alchemist experienced when in the throes of a transmutation... and it was this strange, intoxicating music, instead of alchemy, that was taking him there now...

"_Oro supplex et acclinis! Cor contritum quasi cinnis! Gere curam mei finis!_"

And while her husband sat in the darkened music hall, borne away into a rapture by the stirring sounds of a rebellious requiem by and for a forgotten artist, in the private wing of the Central State Asylum for the Mentally Incompetent, Lian Hawkeye was dying.


	47. Torn Asunder

**Chapter 47: Torn Asunder **

On the morning of the funeral, Leslie Grumman helped the children don the black mourning garments he had brought from Central. Roy Mustang had a sombre jacket and trousers that in all likelihood he would never wear again, for he was sure to outgrow them before he needed them. For Riza there was a plain black frock, a little too large, for her grandfather had erred on the side of caution. The poor child would be expected to be in black for at least a month, in keeping with local proprieties.

Riza was quiet as her grandfather dressed her, her carmine eyes focused on something far away. The previous evening, the soldier had taken her to the mortuary, where her mother's coffin awaited burial. They had brought her from Central on the train, and Mordred had insisted upon riding in the baggage car with the casket, to ensure that no one drew near or desecrated his wife's remains. She had been embalmed in the city, and at great expense, but Grumman had both insisted upon it and paid for it, and for once Mordred had not argued.

The casket, of course, could not be opened, for it had been almost a week since Lian's death. So Grumman had held Riza up to look at it, explaining carefully that her mother was dead, and her body was in this smooth pine box, and tomorrow they would bury her in the graveyard with Davell. Riza had listened quietly, with remarkable stoicism for one so young. Then at last, when Grumman had run out of things to say and a long silence had elapsed, Riza had spoken.

"S-she won't come back?" she had asked, her voice quivering tremulously.

"No," her grandfather had told her. "No. She won't come back."

Riza had sniffled a little, and two fat tears had rolled down her round little cheeks... and that was all. She was bearing it all so well, and her silence broke Grumman's heart in a way that heartrending sobs could not have done.

It was Grumman who fed the children their breakfast, brushed Riza's short, pretty golden hair, and reminded Roy to keep his hands out of his pockets. But it was Bella Greyson who had to come and force Mordred out of bed and into the one good suit that he owned: the one he had worn at his wedding.

Grumman didn't know how the woman managed it. His son-in-law had been in a trance, numb with shock and grief, since the night he had stopped by the hospital after the recital to find the nurses sponging down Lian's cold body while her father stood in the corner and wept.

It should never have happened this way. She had truly seemed to be improving. Grumman had been certain she was out of the woods: all the doctors certainly seemed to think so. He never would have sent Mordred off if he had thought for a moment that Lian was still so ill. She had laid there so peacefully for almost two hours after her husband's departure. Then she had stirred awake, cried out Mordred's name in a harsh, unearthly voice, and even before Grumman could reach her side, she had fallen absolutely still... dead.

The officer was sick with grief and guilt. It was his fault that Mordred had not been there at the moment of Lian's death. Though his motives had been nothing but good, he had robbed Lian of the chance to die in her husband's arms, and he had robbed Mordred of the chance to hold her. Though the alchemist had not said one word of blame, Grumman's remorse was all-consuming.

At last the doctor came down the stairs, shepherding Mordred before her. Riza had looked about to speak to her father, but seeing his stricken face and empty eyes, she had thought better of it and gripped Grumman's hand instead. The small family processed out the front door and down to the mortuary, where the undertaker and his boy waited with the local attorney, who had the burial permit and would preside over the graveside ceremony, and a woman whom the physician introduced as Mrs. Hampton.

Grumman would have paid for a lavish funeral had Mordred wanted one, but the alchemist showed no interest. Recalling his wife's comments about the ascetic Ishbalan burial rites, then, the soldier had opted for a simple service. The coffin was loaded into the hearse, and the undertaker's boy sat with the attorney on the driver's seat. Mordred walked behind, with Grumman and Riza after him. Then came Doctor Greyson, who held Roy's hand; and the lady storekeeper after her. The undertaker soberly brought up the rear, in a token of support to his clients.

The procession up the hill to the graveyard was interrupted only once, for as they passed the post office, its door burst open and a pale blonde girl in a shabby navy-blue frock came out. She had a ragged veil of black mosquito net pinned to her hair, and she spoke softly to the doctor, who smiled sadly and squeezed her hand before letting her fall into file with Mrs. Hampton.

The cemetery was deserted, and the cold spring wind rustled the dry grass. The gravedigger was waiting for them, next to the newly dug hole several paces from Davell's tombstone. He helped the undertaker, his boy, and the attorney draw the coffin from the hearse and set it on the straps that would later be used to lower it into the grave. Then the family and the few mourners drew near, and the attorney took out his book of civil rites.

"In life, Lian Grumman Hawkeye was a fine woman," he began. "She was a treasured daughter, a beloved wife, and a dear and devoted mother. She was cherished by her friends and loved by her family. She served her community and her country in the best way that she knew, through her daily acts of love and charity. In death she is a hero of the State, for the home she kept was a home to loyal citizens, and the children she bore will grow up to serve the nation as their mother taught them and their talents allow them."

Here he nodded first and Riza, and then at Roy – mistaking him, no doubt, for Lian's son. An understandable mistake, Grumman reflected soberly.

"We mourn her now, but we will remember her always. Lian Grumman Hawkeye, rest in serenity, for you have lived your life as a good woman and a loyal citizen of the State." He made his hand into a fist and placed it over his heart, then turned to the mourners. "Would anyone like to say a few words?" he asked.

There was a silence as the others waited for Mordred to speak. After a beat, it became obvious that he was not going to. Grumman squeezed Riza's hand comfortingly. He felt a pang of guilt. His wife, a devout adherent to the Ishbalan religion, had been laid to rest with this same cool, admittedly jingoistic 

Amestrian rite. Now his daughter, a fervent believer herself, was about to be buried in a thoroughly secular way. Without really knowing what he was doing or why, he cleared his throat.

"Lian was my only daughter," he said, his voice carrying through the empty graveyard. "But I was not the only one she called Father. Now, I'm not a religious man, but my wife had her God, and so did Lian. So I'd like to try and pray if I may."

He waited for Mordred to say something scathing, but the alchemist was staring mutely at the casket. The attorney nodded.

"Of course, Lt. Colonel," he said. "Please, do."

Grumman's moustache twitched nervously. "Ishbala," he said awkwardly; "I don't know if you exist, or even if you'd want to hear from me if you did, but if you're out there, I want you to take care of my girl. She was a good lady, and she loved you, and I hear you're supposed to take care of your own. So look after her. Uh... amen?"

"Amen," the doctor said quietly.

There was a pause. "If no one else has anything to say," said the attorney; "then I declare this burial to be true and legal, all local ordinances having been observed, and all licences and fees having been rendered." Then he closed the book, tucked it into his pocket, and folded his hands.

Mordred moved. It was unexpected, but he stepped forward towards the casket. He had something in his hand, and he reached out to set it down. Doctor Greyson let go of Roy and hurried forward, catching the alchemist by the wrist.

"Mordred, no," she said softly. "Your only photograph of your son..."

"He was her son, too," Mordred murmured, his voice cracking. "She doesn't miss him now..."

The doctor withdrew her hand, and Mordred put the photograph on the lid of the coffin. Then he crumpled towards the woman, and she gathered him into a consoling embrace, then wrapped an arm around his shoulder and led him away from the graveside.

The four men who had served as pallbearers each took one end of a strap, and slowly, carefully, hoisted the coffin, navigating it over the grave and lowering it down. There was a soft _thump_ as it found its home, and then the straps were snaked out, and the undertaker and his boy started to coil them up. The gravedigger, eager to be about his business, took his shovel from the heap of dirt next to the grave, and made the first move to fill it in.

There was such a finality to that sound: the noise of the first shovelful of earth hitting the lid of the coffin. Lian was gone. Gone forever.

Grumman wasn't the only one to feel it. For the first time since last night, Riza spoke.

"No!" she cried, tearing her hand free of her grandfather's. "NO! I want my momma! Momma, come back!"

Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she ran forward towards the grave before any of the startled adults could stop her. In her haste, she slipped on some loose earth and pitched forward into the grave with a startled cry.

The others sprung into action, clustering around the hole. Only Mordred hung back, staring vacantly into the grey March sky. Grumman pushed past the startle attorney to look into the grave. Four feet below him, Riza was on her hands and knees on top of her mother's coffin, hammering on the lid with one small fist.

"Momma!" she screamed, sobbing violently. "Momma, come back! Wake up! MOMMA!"

Grumman looked at the doctor, who was wearing an expression of helpless horror. Then someone pressed against his leg. Roy Mustang was elbowing his way to the front. He paused for a moment, judging the distance with his eyes, then jumped down after Riza. He landed with a jolt that ran up his spine and made his head wiggle, on the ground next to the coffin. He reached out and took Riza's shoulder.

She threw him off. "Leave me alone!" she cried. "I want my momma! I don't want her to be dead! Please, Momma, _please _don't be dead anymore!"

She beat the wood still harder. Roy glanced over his shoulder at the faces above him, then climbed onto the coffin, braced himself and hoisted Riza up by the waist. She kicked and writhed, and for a moment Grumman was afraid that the skinny boy would drop her... but he didn't. He tightened his grip, arched his back, and staggered to the edge of the casket, holding her up as high as he could. Swiftly, Grumman knelt, just managing to catch hold of the child's flailing forearms. He drew her towards him, shifting his grip to her armpits as quickly as he was able.

Riza struggled against him, kicking with her small shoes and sobbing miserably that she wanted her momma, but Grumman carried her away from the graveside, not watching as Doctor Greyson and Mrs. Hampton each took one of Roy's arms and hoisted him out of the grave, murmuring to him that he was a brave, clever, hard-headed boy.

"Momma! Momma!" Riza sobbed. She pounded Grumman's clavicle mercilessly, lost in the throes of her tantrum. "I want my momma! Why is she dead? I don't want her to be dead! I WANT MY MOMMA!"

There was no point in staying. Grumman strode away, through the gate and down the hill. He knew that the others were following: the two village women to return to their daily routine, the attorney to head back to his practice. Doctor Greyson was leading Mordred back towards home, Roy hurrying behind her like an anxious rearguard fearful of losing some member of his company.

The walk to the Hawkeye house was a little over three miles, and Grumman's military-trained feet covered the distance in record time. All the while, Riza struggled, trying vainly to escape the protective arms wrapped around her. Her sobs grew worse and worse and the words became less frequent and increasingly incoherent.

Grumman banked sharply into the parlour so that the others could get into the house. He heard the door close, but he was too busy murmuring gently to Riza. He sat down on the sofa, trying to cuddle her to his chest. At last Riza managed to wrench free, but instead of running, she threw herself onto the cushions, sobbing wretchedly.

At last, the noises died away, and Riza's sobs turned to hiccoughs. Then her breathing deepened and levelled off. She was asleep, overcome by sorrow and exhaustion and the brutality of having her safe young world torn to shreds.

Grumman didn't want to move her, so he removed his suit jacket and draped it over her, then retreated from the parlour. Just as he did so, he heard a sharp noise like gunfire and an apologetic hiss. Doctor Greyson was coming down the stairs.

"Mordred's in bed," she murmured. "I wanted to sedate him, but he wouldn't let me. I... I've never seen him like this."

Grumman nodded. "I'll take care of him, don't worry."

"How's Riza?" The physician's worry seemed to go beyond professional interest. Grumman found that comforting. Sooner or later he would have to return to Central and resume the new duties that he had abandoned almost as soon as he'd undertaken them. He was glad to know that he wouldn't be leaving the little family alone without an ally.

"She's asleep," he said. "Poor lamb."

"I... I have to get back to work," the physician said apologetically. "If you need anything, anything at all..."

"I'll send Roy to fetch you," Grumman promised. "He's a good lad. Quick in a crisis."

"Yes, he is," the doctor agreed. She smiled sadly. "Thank you," she said.

Then she slipped through the front door. Grumman went into the kitchen, where Roy was adding wood to the stove. The soldier sat wearily down, and buried his face in his hands. Lian was dead. She was dead. She would never come back.

No wonder Riza had screamed and sobbed and struggled. Right now, Grumman rather wanted to do the same thing. It was all so unjust. So senseless.

Roy made a pot of tea, and the soldier drank the whole thing. Then the boy brought out his mathematics text and sat down to work quietly. An hour passed before anything more happened. Then the kitchen door creaked as someone touched it, and Riza came into the room, rubbing her tear-stained face with one hand.

"Hello, sweetpea," Grumman said gently, holding out his arms to her.

She ran forward, climbing into his lap as she started to sob quietly. She clutched the front of his shirt and buried her face against him.

"M-M-Momma's dea-ea-eaaaa—" The sound grew in pitch and in volume until Grumman couldn't help flinching, amazed that such a small body could produce such an enormous sound. Then it broke like a string stretched past its limit, and descended into miserable weeping. There was a sound of footsteps on the ceiling, and then on the stairs. Grumman felt hopeful. Mordred was coming to comfort his child. Riza's tears were rousing the alchemist, who had been almost catatonic since Lian's death, to action once more.

Mordred came into the room, stumbling a bit as his foot struck the doorpost. Grumman got to his feet, adjusting his hold on the little girl with the expectation that her father would put out her arms for her. He waited for Mordred to do this, to cuddle Riza to his chest in order to console and be consoled. Instead, the alchemist clenching his hands into fists.

"SHUT UP!" he shouted.

Riza stiffened like a board, and the sobbing stopped abruptly. Grumman took a startled step backwards. He could feel Riza's heart hammering against the wall of her chest.

"Mordred!" he admonished in quiet horror. "For goodness' sake, her mother is dead. Of course she's going to cry. There, there, sweetpea. Papa didn't mean to shout."

"He _did!_" Mordred growled, picking up the chair that Grumman had vacated only to slam it down against the floor. Roy leapt from his seat and rounded the table to stand next to the soldier. Mordred went on, vitriol in his voice. "That little brat – that posturing _prima donna_! Misbehaving at Lian's funeral... acting like a... like a spoiled child. You little wretch, I'll make you wish you had never been born!"

"Mordred!" Grumman choked out, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. "Calm down!"

"I am calm!" the alchemist roared. This time, the chair didn't keep its balance, but pitched off towards the larder door. "Who are you to tell me how to behave or what to say? _You._"

His pale eyes flashed with rage. His hair had come loose of the braid that the doctor had drawn it into, and it was whipping around his gaunt, choleric face like flames lapping at a demon. "You arrogant bastard. You fascist beast. You killed her! You killed my wife!"

"I killed her?" Grumman exclaimed, taking another step back and turning his body as if to physically shield Riza from her father's wrath. "No one killed her, Mordred: it was the sickness!"

"_You killed her_!" Mordred repeated, spittle flying from his mouth. "You convinced me she needed help! You and that damned meddling Greyson woman, you made me put her away! Then she got sick, and... and you sent me off! You sent me off, and she died, and I'll never forgive you for that, old man! NEVER!"

"Mordred, calm down," Grumman said, taking deep breaths himself and trying to control himself. He set Riza down, putting her hand in Roy's. "You two go and play quietly upstairs," he instructed. He didn't want them to see Mordred like this.

"Oh, no you don't!" Mordred shouted. "They stay! I want them to know! They have a _right _to know what you are and what you did! Tell them! Tell them how you took her away from me! You wanted her all to yourself. You never wanted her to marry me, so you took her back! TELL THEM! Tell them how that wasn't enough! You sent me away and she died alone! Curse you for that, you military monster! You baby-murdering killer-for-hire! You killed her, your own daughter, just to spite me!"

So it was out in the open. Grumman felt a band of horror closing on his heart. He had sent Mordred away, and in his absence Lian had died, and there was nothing that would ever make that right.

"Mordred," he said, his voice sick with grief. Beside him, Roy was shepherding Riza to the other side of the room, where the woodbox provided some shelter from the volatile fury of the alchemist. Poor things, they had probably never seen him so angry before!

Mordred swooped forward and slapped Grumman so hard that he almost lost his balance. "Get out!" he shrieked. "Get out and never come back!"

"I can't do that!" Grumman said. "You need help here. Your wife is dead. You need someone to take care of the day-to-day chores while you mourn—"

"Damn you!" Mordred roared. "You think you can tell me how to run this household? You have no rights here anymore, old man! You forfeited those when you murdered my wife! Get out! If you ever darken my door again – if I even see you in this village again, I'll... I'll..."

His hand moved into his pocket, and out came the flint that he kept handy for lighting his candles or kindling the stove, or whatever else he used it for.

"You've seen what I can do," he snarled, his eyes alight manic fury. "You know what you and your precious military want to do with my talents. They'd make a great weapon, wouldn't they, you fascist bastard? Well, I could test it on you, couldn't I?"

Grumman stared. His son-in-law, the father of his grandchildren, the beloved of his only daughter, was threatening his life. As surely as if he had produced a pistol, Mordred was holding a weapon, and threatening to use it. But he had misjudged his target. Grumman was a soldier, and he had looked death in the eye more than once.

"I'm not afraid of death, and I'm not afraid of you," the older man said softly. "You're grieving and in pain, and you need help, even if you won't admit it."

"Oh, I'm grieving, am I? And whose fault is that? You murdered her, you heartless monster! You sent me away and you murdered her!" Mordred's wrist twitched. He flicked the flint, and a harmless shower of sparks shot into the air. "Get out of here! I never want to see your face again!"

Grumman stood his ground. "I didn't know, Mordred," he said softly. "I couldn't have known. Do you think I would have let you leave if I had?"

"You _did_! You _did_ let me leave!" There were tears in the alchemist's eyes now, and his voice was taking on an unmistakable quality of hysteria.

Then Grumman felt it. There were currents in the air, air that should have been all but still. It was like a strange wind was moving through the kitchen, gathering together the ingredients of a mighty tempest. His pulse quickened. He didn't know quite how his son-in-law made the flames, but he knew it had to have something to do with the hydrogen and the oxygen in the air.

"Mordred..." he said, his voice wavering a little.

"Get out, I tell you!" hollered the younger man. "Get out of here!" Then his hysteria seemed to break, and a horrible, deadly calm descended upon him. "So you don't fear death..." he breathed, his voice so low that it was doubtful that the children could hear him. "But there are things worse than death, old man. Do you want to feel my pain? Do you want to know what it's like to lose the only thing you have left to love? The only thing that is good and beautiful and right in the whole world?"

A horrible grin like the smile of a skull spread across the alchemist's face, and for a moment there was madness in his eyes. "Do you want to feel my pain?"

"Mordred," Grumman gasped. "Mordred, calm down. You're hurting right now. You're in pain and you don't know what you're saying. Mordred, please..."

"Get out," Mordred said, slowly and menacingly. "Go away and never come back. I forbid you access to this house. I forbid you access to my daughter. I'll never forgive you for what you have done, and until the day I die I will hate you for it. With all of my soul, I will hate you. Now get out. I don't want to see your face again."

Then he turned his back on Grumman, slipped the flint into his pocket, and strode towards the children. "Roy, take Riza upstairs and help her wash her face. It's all streaked with dirt."

The boy herded the little girl carefully around the alchemist, giving him a wide berth. He glanced mournfully at Grumman as he hurried past. There was the sound of four small feet scurrying up the stairs. Mordred stood still, staring at the stove with his back towards the soldier.

"Get out, old man," he growled. "You're not wanted here."

It was a decision that Grumman was condemning himself to regret every day for the next decade, but he nodded.

"I'll go," he breathed. "Heaven help you, but I'll go."

"I'll see you in hell, father-in-law," Mordred said, his voice lilting ironically. It was not a jibe, nor an insult, nor a paltry comeback. It was a promise.

Grumman went. He didn't remember stumbling into the corridor, or collecting his jacket, coat and kit bag from the parlour, or backing out of the house. By the time he was in control of his actions again, he was on the train to East City. And by then it was too late to go back.

Though he wrote to Doctor Greyson as soon as he arrived back in Central, apologizing for his abrupt departure, he did not tell her the whole of what had transpired after she left the house that afternoon. Through her, he kept a distant watch on his granddaughter for a number of years... but true to his word, he never returned to the village of Hamner.


	48. Enduring Lessons

**Chapter 48: Enduring Lessons**

Somewhere upstairs, Mordred could hear Riza screaming. He glanced at the window, and saw the dark void beyond the sash. So it was one of her infantile night terrors again. Stupid little girl. Well, the boy would take care of it.

Ten days had passed since Lian's funeral, and in that time the Hawkeye house had been largely isolated. It seemed there was an outbreak of typhoid fever in one of the small hamlets some miles from the village, and Bella Greyson had relocated there temporarily, in yet another absurd charitable gesture. Mordred was glad. He didn't want her anywhere near here. She would lecture him, or worse... pity him. Worst of all, she would force him to feel.

It hurt too much, emotion. If he allowed himself to feel anything, if he made one crack in the great stone dike that he had thrust up around his heart, then everything would come flooding back. Sorrow at Lian's passing, guilt that he had not been present at the moment of her death, anger and regret for having sent Grumman away, fear for the future... a future without his wife.

No, it was better not to feel.

He had accomplished nothing since the funeral save the ordering of the headstone. Simple. Her name. Date of birth, date of death. And a snippet of verse that did not even come close to memorializing his anguish.

Anguish? What anguish? He didn't care, after all. It didn't matter.

Lian was gone, and for all his prowess and might, for all that he could command the forces of wind and fire to do his bidding, he could not bring her back. She was gone and would never return. Never. Never. Never. Never.

Never.

He looked at the papers before him. They were gathering a thin layer of dust, these meaningless sketches. What did he care about preserving his research? What did alchemy matter, if it could not restore to him the one thing he loved?

Mordred got to his feet, repulsed by the table full of hollow scribbles, and strode over to the fire. He clutched the mantle and leaned forward so that the flames cast strange shadows over his face. Dead. She was dead.

He wouldn't feel it. He couldn't feel it. He didn't care.

_Confutatis maledictis flammis acribus addictis... _The music, that awful, soul-stirring, terrifying, exquisite music that had so captivated and distracted him while his wife lay dying cycled through Mordred's head. _Confutatis maledictis flammis acribus addictis..._

_When the damned are confounded and consigned to flames of woe..._

He stared into the fire. _Flames of woe._ _Flammis acribus. _Oddly appropriate, he thought. He was confined to flames of woe himself: the burning torment of grief, the alchemy that at once defined him and was destroying him. Strange... all his life he had been stirred by images and by action. Now this haunting melody and its dark, ominous words were rousing in him emotions that...

No. He must not feel. He could not feel. Not anymore.

He didn't care.

_discidium_

Roy was doing the laundry. He had brought out the hamper full of soiled clothes – little dresses, pinafores, undergarments, his own shirts, a few random garments that Hawkeye-sensei had deigned to change over the last week – and set it in the sun. He found the pot of store-bought soap (for there was no one to make it anymore) and took the heavy glass washboard and the wooden mangler down from their pegs on the lean-to wall. He filled the tub with water from the pump... and then came the best part of all. He rolled up his sleeves, closed his eyes to focus, and then dove his hands into the liquid, activating the transmutation circle at the bottom of the washtub.

He heated the water slowly and carefully, until it was hot enough to clean the clothes well, but not so hot that he would burn himself. He lathered up his hands and went to work on the clothes.

Laundry was a hard chore. It was hard even for the strong-armed farm women who had been doing it year in and year out for all of their adult lives. For Roy, still small for his nine and a half years, with his narrow back and his skinny shoulders, it was a brutally physical task. He could wash Riza's pinnies easily enough, but the hard scrubbing necessary to beat the sweat and dirt and flecks of skin from the undergarments and from Hawkeye-sensei's large shirts was absolutely backbreaking.

It was hard on his hands, too. By the end of an afternoon of laundry, they would be sore and cracked, the knuckles raw from the constant rasping against the washboard. His knees would ache from kneeling so long on the hard ground. And the muscles between his shoulders would burn so badly that he would sometimes lay awake at night, crying softly into his pillow.

He had to do it, though, because Riza couldn't and Hawkeye-sensei wouldn't. Sometimes the doctor would take a bundle of clothes to wash for them, but she didn't always think of it. She was too busy taking care of everyone else in the village, now that she was back in town: her ability to help the small family was limited. So once a week, Roy gritted his teeth and attacked the dirty clothes with determination that would have made Hawkeye-sensei proud... had he bothered to notice it.

As it was, the adult scarcely seemed to realize that the children were in the house when he was not teaching them. That, admittedly, consumed a fair amount of his time these days. He seemed oddly determined, suddenly, that both Roy and Riza should be properly educated. In Riza's case, this meant elementary geography and history in addition to reading and ciphering. In Roy's, it meant Plato and Aristotle, increasingly complex (and intriguing) mathematics, the rudiments of Greek and Latin (which were even worse than normal reading!), and – best of all! – chemistry.

"One – hydrogen. Two – helium," Roy chanted as he scrubbed Riza's green striped dress. "Three – lithium. Four – beryllium. Five – boron."

He was expected to know the whole of the periodic table. At first he had been apprehensive, but then Hawkeye-sensei had explained that chemistry was the basis of alchemy, as elements were the basis of all matter. Soon, he would be expected to know the molar masses of each element, too, and to be able to estimate the number of molecules in a sample just by holding it in his hand. Then, when he could do that, he would be ready to undertake more complex transmutations.

"Ten – neon," he grunted. "Eleven – sodium. Twelve – magnesium. Thirteen – aluminum."

Riza was inside, washing the dinner dishes. Roy had recently let her take on this responsibility, because he thought that it hurt her feelings that her father never considered her useful enough to undertake the household chores that he heaped on the boy. Roy knew the sense of accomplishment that came from doing what one was told, and doing it well, and he wanted to share that with Riza. She seemed to like washing the dishes, and after a few days of doing so under his supervision, he had decided that she was ready to try it by herself. Besides, the sooner he got the laundry started, the more likely everything would be dry by sundown.

"Seventeen – chlorine. Eighteen – argon. Nineteen – potassium. Twenty – calcium. Twenty-one – scandium. Twenty-two – titanium."

The back door opened, and a tearful little face peered out. Roy stopped his recitation, wiping his brow with the crook of his elbow while his hands dripped soapy water into the grass.

"Riza?" he panted, a little breathless from the exertion. "What's wrong?"

"I br-broke your plate!" Riza confessed, her voice quavering with terror. "P-Papa will be a-a-angry..."

Roy got to his feet, wiping his hands on an as yet unwashed shirt. "Let me see," he said, taking her shoulder and guiding her into the kitchen.

Sure enough, the earthenware dish was in several pieces, scattered around the kitchen floor. Roy bit his lip. If Hawkeye-sensei found out, he _would_ be angry: both at Riza for breaking the dish, and at Roy, for letting her wash it when her father obviously thought she was too little. His options, then were to bury the shards in the midden and hope that the alchemist would not miss the plate, or...

"Go and fetch your slate pencil," Roy said. "Quietly."

Sometimes, when Hawkeye-sensei was dozing with his head on his desk, or bent over his all-important research that made him look like a man possessed, Roy would take down a book from the shelves upon shelves of texts, and look at it. He couldn't always read the commentary, but he could see the circles, and he could usually piece together enough of the accompanying text that he could figure out what they were used for. He had been aching to try one, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Carefully, he gathered the pieces of broken pottery. He made sure to find every last one, even the thin little sliver no bigger than a piece of fingernail. If he didn't find them all, he wouldn't be able to reproduce the whole. An alchemist could not _create_ matter, but only manipulate existing matter. To obtain, something of equal value must be given. It was the cardinal law of alchemy.

Riza came back with the slate pencil. "What are you going to do?" she asked nervously. "Don't you need paste?"

"I'm not going to paste it," Roy said. "I'm going to mend it."

Closing his eyes, he visualized the array that he had see in the book. Then he carefully, carefully drew it on the floor, keeping his circle perfectly round, each character centred precisely where it belonged. Then he set the shards of the plate carefully in the hub of the circle.

"Stand back," he said, just in case something should go wrong. Then he flexed his fingers and activated the array. There was the familiar surge of energy, that nanosecond of clarity... and Roy laughed triumphantly.

"You did it," Riza said softly, her eyes wide with wonder.

"Yup," Roy said. He picked up the plate and got to his feet, then climbed onto the chair that was pushed up to the sink, and set it carefully in the cupboard.

The door to Hawkeye-sensei's study opened with a _bang_! The alchemist burst into the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Roy swallowed hard. He had forgotten that the alchemist seemed to have a sixth sense: an uncanny ability to tell that he was performing a transmutation in the house.

"Well?" Hawkeye-sensei demanded.

"I... I fixed a plate," Roy said, pointing at the circle on the floor.

The alchemist strode forward, looked at the array, then frowned at the boy. "Where is the plate?" he asked.

Roy took it from the counter and climbed off the chair, handing the dish to the man. The adult took it and studied it.

"I see," he said. He set the dish on the counter, and then with the speed of a cat batting at a mouse, struck out with his cupped palm and boxed Roy's right ear.

The boy flinched, clutching at the side of his head while his eardrum began to ring.

"I told you, you are not to perform _any_ transmutations but the ones I have taught you!" Hawkeye-sensei snapped. "Talent is not enough! You must have discipline! Furthermore, alchemy is not a tool for covering up your mistakes or evading punishment. Who broke the plate?"

Riza's eyes widened with terror.

"I did, sir," Roy said. The little girl looked shocked, but she should not have been. Roy had told her to wash the dishes, and as a result the plate had been broken. Because he was the one who had put her in that position in the first place, he was the one responsible for the incident. It was only logical.

"In future, I will not tolerate disobedience or cowardice," the alchemist growled. "If you do something stupid, admit to it and ask for help."

"But I didn't need help," Roy protested. "I fixed it."

The alchemist struck his left ear. "You fixed it by disobeying me," he said. "I do not want you reading my books. I do not want you experimenting. You will learn only what I teach you, understood?"

Roy hung his head. "Yes, sir," he mumbled.

The man's expression softened marginally. "As you are now my pupil," he said; "it is fitting that you call me 'sensei', not 'sir'. I'm your teacher, not your master."

Roy looked up, surprised. In a vague way, he was aware that his status in the household had just changed drastically. "Yes, si – yes, _sensei_," he said.

"Good," the alchemist said bluntly. "Now get back to the laundry: the sunlight won't last forever."

He strode away, leaving the two children alone. Roy watched him go, momentarily surprised that Hawkeye-sensei knew what he had been doing. Then he remembered that he had heated the water. So not all autonomous transmutation was forbidden, he thought. Only the use of new arrays. Well, he would be more careful from now on... but he would still study the books when he had the chance. After all, _someday_ he would be able to use them.

_discidium_

Roy was struggling to hang the last undershirt on the clothesline. To do this, he had to stand on an apple box, and get as far up onto his toes as he could manage. Even then, he couldn't _quite_ reach half the time. He overbalanced, arms flailing in an attempt to save himself from another fall, then tried to stretch up towards the line again.

A long, bony hand plucked the shirt from his fingers, swung it over the line, then produced a clothespin out of nowhere, and clipped it into place. Startled, Roy turned around. He was met with a sight that filled his heart with unspeakable jubilation: an enormous grin, an unruly head of black hair, and two moss-green eyes twinkling mischievously from behind a pair of round spectacles.

"Whaddaya think?" Maes Hughes asked. "I've grown since last year, huh?"

_discidium_

"Very good," Hawkeye-sensei said coolly, closing the text against which he had been checking Roy's recitation. "But it is 'scandium', not 'scanadium'."

"Yes, sensei," Roy said. "My tongue slipped—"

"Do not make excuses!" the alchemist said sharply. Irately. "Admit your mistake, learn from it, and resolve never to repeat it. You must be accountable for what you _have_ done, not what you _meant _to do."

"Accountable for what I _have_ done, not what I _meant _to do. Yes, sensei," Roy said.

"Fine. You can go now. Are you finished with the washing?"

"Yes, sensei. Yesterday."

"And the dinner dishes?"

"Clean, sensei." Roy didn't add that it was Riza who had cleaned them. The little girl was astonished that he still trusted her after yesterday's incident, but Roy saw no reason not to. She'd be more careful now.

"The kitchen floor?"

"Scrubbed, sensei."

"And the parlour dusted?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Then make me a pot of tea," said the alchemist.

"I already did, sensei," Roy said, pointing at the tray that he had set on the corner of the desk when he had come back from giving Riza her dinner.

Hawkeye-sensei looked at it suspiciously, then touched the side to see that it was warm. He grunted. "Very well, then. Your time is your own for the rest of the day. Tell Riza she may come in and bring her reader."

"Yes, sensei." Roy turned to go, but then stopped. The alchemist seemed in such a reasonable mood. Did he dare... "Sensei?"

"What?"

Oh, dear. He sounded irate again now. There had been no display of unbridled choler since the day of the funeral, two months ago, but the memory of Hawkeye-sensei's wrath was still fresh. Roy shook his head. "Nothing, I'm sorry..." he mumbled.

"Speak up. What do you want?"

Roy swallowed hard. It took more courage than he thought he had, but he spoke anyway.

"The tinkers, sensei. They're back in town."

The alchemist's eyes narrowed. "And you want to know if you can run off and play with that no-good rapscallion you're so fond of?" he sneered.

Roy hung his head. "Yes, sensei," he whispered.

"The bespectacled good-for-nothing who very nearly got himself killed last year, and would have taken you with him to hell if I'd let him?"

"We were only pla—"

"_Don't make excuses_!" the alchemist snapped. "Haven't you been listening to what I've been saying to you?"

"I'm sorry, sensei," Roy said, drawing in a deep breath and squaring his narrow shoulders. Hawkeye-sensei hated his cringing timidity. An alchemist should speak with confidence: an alchemist spoke with the voice of authority, the voice of knowledge. "I should take responsibility for what I _have_ done," he recited again, firmly. "What I _meant_ to do doesn't matter."

"That's right! Don't forget it." The alchemist turned back to the book he had been studying.

Roy wondered if that meant that he had been dismissed. As a minute dragged by, and then two, he decided that this must be the case. He turned to go.

"Roy," Hawkeye-sensei said, just as the boy reached the door. "Be back by nightfall. I won't keep supper for you if you're late."

Roy froze. "Sensei?"

"Go and play with your wretched little friend if you must, but be back by nightfall," the alchemist repeated.

A small laugh of disbelief spilled out before Roy could stop it. "With Maes, sir? Sensei..." he corrected himself. Calling the alchemist by that title was a privilege, and not one that the boy was about to forfeit.

"Yes, of course. Unless you have another ragtag wandering urchin you'd rather spend time with." The man looked up and fixed his steely gaze on Roy. "But if I find you've been up in that treehouse, you won't have a shred of skin left on that skinny back of yours, do you hear me?"

"Yes, sensei!" Roy exclaimed. He was so rapturous with excitement that the threat couldn't touch him. "_Thank you_, sensei!"

Hawkeye frowned. "Get out of here before I change my mind," he said gruffly.

Roy didn't need to be told twice. Three minutes later, he was running jubilantly along the road into the village, having only just remembered to tell Riza that it was time for her to go in to recite for her father.

_discidium_

"School?" Maes laughed. "Naw, I'm done! I've been trying my hand at tinkering instead. I mean, the actual tinsmithing. I've always been a natural-born salesman."

He smiled innocently, and Roy grinned. That was true, he thought, remembering the marbles his friend had used to peddle at recess and dinner break. "So what have you made?" he asked, eager to show a lively interest.

The older boy's expression darkened. "Leave it to you to find the only raincloud in the sky," he said. He reached into the smaller caravan and brought out a shallow basket. He thrust it into Roy's hands.

Inside were several malformed pieces of tinplate. The sheets of metal had been cut into strips and tacked together clumsily with little metal pins. They formed outlines of dented, abstract, vaguely unattractive shapes.

"What are they?" Roy asked, bewildered.

"They're cookie cutters," Maes said morosely, picking one up. "I've made dozens, and not one of them would make a cookie that _I'd_ want to eat. Look, this one's shaped like a liver."

It sort of was, but Roy didn't want to hurt his friend's feelings. He sifted through the ugly shapes, trying to find one that he could say something nice about.

"Here, I like this one," he said at last, lifting another one up. "It's a leaf, right?"

Maes groaned. "It's supposed to be a bear!" he said.

Roy slipped it sheepishly back into the basket. "Well, maybe you shouldn't be a tinker," he said.

"_Maybe?_" Maes laughed. "I'd make a better milkmaid!" He shrugged. "But I promised I'd give it at least eight months, and I've only served five. I don't want the guys to think I'm a quitter."

Roy nodded sympathetically. "You're not," he assured his friend.

"Enough about me!" Maes said. "Eli heard you've been learning alchemy: is it true?"

_discidium_

That spring was the happiest one Roy could remember. Every morning, he worked on his lessons with Hawkeye-sensei. In the afternoons, if his chores were done and Riza adequately provided for, he was allowed to head down to the bluffs to spend time with Maes. They explored the countryside together, laughing and teasing and outwitting one another. Maes taught him how to climb trees – though never, _never_ the elm in the Hawkeyes' back yard; and how to tie knots and carve whistles out of willow twigs. There were games and adventures (and one or two minor _mis_adventures...) and stories around the campfire, and Maes' family was always cheerful and welcoming – except Ben, who when he was around was not particularly cheerful.

If it hadn't been for worries about Riza's persistent night terrors; and the instinctive wariness of Hawkeye-sensei's quick disciplining hand, life would have been perfect. But then the six weeks drew to an end, and the tinkers packed up to move on. The summer waned, and autumn came, and then the snow. Riza was quiet, and the weather was ugly, and Hawkeye-sensei was engrossed in his work, reading books that he had ordered from East City and Central and as far away as Aerugo. But money was plentiful that winter, and the children didn't want for food (though at times they _did_ want for someone to cook it), and when Riza started to outgrow her shoes, Hawkeye-sensei gave Roy two hundred _sens_ and told him to buy some from the "damned dry goods store", and not to bother him with details like that.

So, inexorably, the year drew to a close.


	49. Confidences and Magic String

**Chapter 49: Confidences and Magic String**

Riza didn't understand what she had done wrong.

She knew that it must have been something terrible, but she couldn't figure out what it was, or when she had done it. A long time ago, probably. When she was just little and didn't know any better, but that didn't matter. Papa kept telling Roy that the things you _did _do were what mattered, not the things that you _meant_ to do.

Papa told Roy a lot of things. Whenever Roy did his lessons, Papa would put aside his own work to discuss things with him. They would talk about the subject at hand, whether it was mathematics or chemistry or history or philosophy. Roy had trouble with the last two, and Riza knew it, but Papa never seemed to notice. He couldn't see that half the time Roy was faking his way through it. Riza knew, though. She saw Roy thumping the pages in frustration when he studied in the kitchen, or staring vacantly at the big, old dictionary, and once or twice she had even caught him sounding words out under his breath – words that she, despite the fact that she was only six and he was ten, had no trouble at all in reading.

Riza didn't understand. _She_ was a good reader. She knew all of her numbers, and she could add and sub-stract, and even knew her two times tables. Still, no matter how hard she worked, how carefully she studied, how well she learned the things that Papa wanted her to recite, it never seemed good enough. There was always some little mistake, or her writing was too messy, or she had answered too slowly or spoke too softly. And Papa never talked to _her_ about things the way he talked to Roy.

Of course, Roy was older, so he was probably more interesting to talk to. And Roy was learning alchemy, so Papa liked that, too. Papa loved alchemy. Sometimes Riza wished that _she_ could learn alchemy, too, so that Papa would spend time with her like he spent time with Roy.

Some small part of her mind thought that this was all wrong. She thought that her papa was supposed to love her, and read her stories, and bounce her on his knee, and call her _chibi-chan_. Instead, he was impatient and grumpy, distant at the best of times, too busy to read to her unless she made a mistake and he had to correct her. His knees were always under his desk, now, or piled high with the new books he kept sending away for. And he never called her anything but "you" on most days. "You, go and wash your face!" he would say; or "You, find something quiet to do!"; or "You come here and I'll give you some more arithmetic problems".

Riza wondered what terrible, awful thing she could possibly have done to make him stop loving her.

Right now, he was bent over his desk, poring over another book, his hand tapping the barrel of his fountain pen against the paper before him. His eyes were focused intently on the page, and he looked like there was nothing in the world but himself and the words that he was drinking in.

Riza bit her lip and bowed her head over the reader. She was six years old now, and she was a big girl. Papa had said so – almost the only kind thing he had said to her in weeks. She was a big girl, he said, and Riza's heart had soared with pleasure... and then he had quantified it with a brusque "big enough to study _quietly_, for goodness' sake!"

_Papa_ wasn't studying quietly, she thought crossly. He was humming. That was odd: Papa didn't ordinarily hum at all. He didn't sing anymore, either. Nobody sang in this house, 'cept sometimes Doctor Bella if she stayed late on the nights she brought supper. If she put Riza to bed, she would linger to read a story and sing a lullaby. Those were the nicest times.

But now, Papa was humming. It wasn't any tune that Riza recognized, so she cocked her head, listening to the unfamiliar but not unpleasant sound.

Roy wasn't here. It was springtime again, and Maes was in town, so Roy was upstairs, changing the sheets on Papa's bed. He wasn't allowed to play with Maes until all of his chores were done. Riza wondered if they still played the same games now that they were both bigger. Roy was ten years old, and his trousers and sleeves were getting too short. Maes had stopped by the yard a couple of times to help with the garden, and he was _enormous_ now: almost as big as a grown-up man. Riza wondered why a grown-up man would want a boy for a friend, even a big boy like Roy.

Riza wished _she_ could have a friend.

The room was suddenly silent again. Riza felt oddly disappointed. "Don't stop, Papa," she pleaded. "It's pretty."

Papa's head snapped up, and he looked over his shoulder at her. "What is it?" he demanded coldly.

Riza shrank a little under his hard gaze. "T-the music," she said. "It's pretty."

Papa blinked. "What music?" he asked.

"Th-the music you w-were humming," Riza whispered. She hoped he wouldn't be angry! She hadn't _meant_ to speak out loud, but the music _had_ been pretty, and she missed it!

"Was I?" Papa sounded surprised. Then he laughed softly to himself. "I suppose I was. Yes, it is pretty, isn't it?"

Riza nodded warily.

"Pretty and useful," Papa said. "You see, I've worked out what it was missing. I tried for months – _years_ to encode it using images alone, but that isn't enough. An image can't provide the intricacy that you need to encipher this kind of information. It's too complex. So you need something else. Numerical codes are too easy to break. Much, much too easy."

There was a queer, animated light in his eyes. Riza didn't understand what he was saying, but she nodded anyway. She hadn't had this much attention from her father in longer than she could readily recall. She didn't want to interrupt him.

"But words... you can do so much with words!" he went on. "And the fact that there's music, and the original text as well... why, you see how the options are endless! I could encrypt entire volumes this way! No average alchemist will be able to work this out: pedantic, small-minded fools that they are. If only the process wasn't so time-consuming..."

Then his expression changed. Suddenly he was shocked, and maybe even a little frightened, as if he had just realized that he was revealing something very important to a bewildered six-year-old. He frowned.

"Riza, this is our secret, do you understand me?" he said, and suddenly he sounded very stern. "You are never to tell anyone. Not Doctor Bella, not Roy... no one. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Papa," Riza breathed, nodding fervently. It had something to do with his alchemy: she knew it! "But why not Roy?"

"Because it's none of his business!" her father snapped. "This is _my _work. My research, Riza. Do you understand that? I've devoted my life to this knowledge, and I have to guard it. You have to help me guard it."

"Yes, Papa. I will," Riza said. Her eyes were wide: she couldn't believe what she was hearing. He was trusting her with a secret! It was a secret that she couldn't understand, true, but it was obviously terribly important. Suddenly she was glad she couldn't understand. If she didn't know what the secret was, she couldn't betray it.

"Good girl," Papa murmured, nodding thoughtfully. "Good girl." He turned back towards his desk. "I think you've worked hard enough for one day. Run along and play."

"Yes, Papa. I won't tell anybody," Riza said. He had called her a good girl! Today she was a good girl! "I promise."

"See that you don't," Papa said. "I'm trusting you, Riza. This is very important."

"Very important," Riza echoed, partly in agreement and partly because she relished the words. He was trusting her with something important! Her papa, who before now hadn't even trusted her to go into town to get the mail, was trusting her to help him protect his work! She was a good girl today!

"Run along, now. Go and play. Maybe Roy will take you to see that worthless friend of his. Then maybe I could have a little peace and quiet for once." Papa picked up his pen and turned back to his book.

Riza understood. She was dismissed. She carefully set down her schoolbook, and slipped from the room, drawing the study door closed behind her.

_discidium_

She found Roy just getting ready to leave. "Papa said I could come with you," Riza said softly.

"He _did_?" Roy said incredulously.

Riza nodded. "He wants some peace and quiet."

Roy rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly. "You're not loud!" he said. "D'you want to come?"

Riza wasn't sure. It would be nice to get away from the house for a while, and after all, Papa _did_ want peace and quiet, and obviously she was louder than Roy thought, because she still bothered Papa.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"I think you should," Roy said earnestly. "Besides, Maes' place is amazing! Maybe you can meet his brothers."

Riza dared to smile. She loved Roy so much. He never made her feel stupid or unwanted. He let her do the dishes and help in the garden, even though Papa didn't think she could be trusted with such responsibilities. He liked her writing and he was just a little envious of her reading. He was smart and talented and sometimes even funny. When she looked at Roy, she could almost understand why Papa liked him better: she liked him best of all herself.

"Okay," she said.

Roy grinned enormously. "That's great!" he said happily. He plucked her straw hat from its peg and tied it under her chin for her. "You're gonna love it!"

Riza slipped her hand into his, and he squeezed it fondly, leading her through the door and out onto the road that led into town. Her stomach fluttered with excitement. Even though she didn't much care for Maes, she was cognizant of the treat of being allowed to go and visit him. She hardly ever went out, except sometimes if Papa would let her go with Roy to buy food and paper and pick up the mail.

They walked through the town, and out towards the creek bluffs. Riza hadn't been in the woods for a long, long time. Suddenly she felt sad. The last time she had been to the woods, Papa had brought her, and they had fed the little animals together. Or maybe that was a dream. It didn't _seem_ very real.

The trees ended abruptly, and the two children stepped into a clearing. Riza looked at the caravans with their pretty carvings and bright colours. She took in the fire pit, and the little kiln, and the wagon piled high with a load covered by a heavy tarpaulin. Her heart leapt eagerly when she saw the horses. Four of the big ones were grazing on their picket lines. She wondered where the other two and the lively little pony were.

There were no people around, either, except for Maes. He was seated cross-legged in the shade, and he was _sewing_. Riza was surprised and bewildered: she thought that only ladies could sew. Papa certainly didn't know how: it was Doctor Bella who did the mending now that Momma was... dead.

Roy let go of her hand and sprinted over to flop down in the grass by his friend. "Hey," he said.

Maes grinned, clamped his needle between his front teeth, and held out his fist. Roy made one of his own, and bopped the older boy's hand with it. Then Maes turned back to his work.

"I'm almost done," he promised. Then he added, almost as an afterthought; "Hey there, Riza."

Riza wasn't sure what to do with herself, so she moved to stand at Roy's shoulder, stealing shy glances at Maes and trying to figure out what it was he was making. It was small and brown, and it seemed to have a lot of little tubes attached to it. The seams weren't very smooth, either.

"What's that?" Roy asked.

"What's this?" Maes echoed indignantly. "What do you think it is? It's a glove, of course!" He knotted off his thread and bit it in two. "Gareth's teaching me his trade, since I'll never make a tinker."

He stuck the needle into a little pouch of emery, and held up his handiwork. "Not bad, huh?" he asked. "I mean, it's a little puckered, but after a few days' wear you'll never know the difference!"

Roy regarded him sceptically. "It's got six fingers," he said.

"It does not!" Maes contradicted indignantly. Then he looked at it and hissed. "Shh – _darn _it!" he expectorated. Then he put on a showy smile. "Well, haven't you ever seen a six-fingered man?"

Roy shook his head patiently, and Riza hid a little giggle behind her hand.

"Neither have I," Maes admitted; "but he's out there somewhere! And when I find him, I'll give this to him, and he'll be my friend forever. So there!"

"I don't think you're much of a glover, either," Roy said.

Maes moaned a little and fell backwards so that he was lying in the grass – which looked quite odd because his legs were still crossed. "I know," he said. "I've been at it since New Year's, and I can't even make a decent pattern. A pattern that produces something that _looks_ like a glove, even; let alone a custom pattern that'd actually _fit_ someone!"

"Well, you could try glassgrinding," Roy suggested.

"I _did_!" Maes wailed. "I spent the whole first part of the winter with Eli at the glassworks in East City!"

"And?" Roy asked apprehensively.

"And what do you think? Everything I touched shattered into a million pieces! My marbles all turned out like snakes. I tried to pour a saucer, and it came out looking like a molehill. And when they had me try _blowing_ something..." He grimaced. "I blew too hard and the bulb exploded and burned one of the senior apprentices right between the eyes. Eli says I could've blinded him. After that they politely asked me to leave. I still say it was the apprentice's fault for taking off his goggles to impress that girl..."

"Ah..." Roy said sympathetically. "Well, you could always try... uhm... something else?"

"Huh. The only thing I'm good at is hunting," Maes said. "I got a pair of pheasant yesterday. Ben says I'm a heck of a hand with the knives. Nope, I'd better face facts: I'm never going to be a wealthy artisan."

"What's this?" a deep, ponderous voice asked.

The two boys didn't even look, but Riza's head whipped around anxiously. There, at the edge of the clearing, stood a tall, grim-faced man wearing dark clothing. He looked a lot like Maes, but he was older, of course, and his hair was shorter, and he wore rectangular glasses instead of round ones.

"Aw, Ben, don't play dumb!" Maes chided. "You know Roy's over here all the time."

"Not him," the man said slowly. He pointed at Riza. "Her."

"That's the alchemist's daughter," Maes said. "Riza."

The man seemed to consider this for a moment, looking Riza over thoughtfully. He reached up and doffed his cap.

"Afternoon, Miss Hawkeye," he said politely.

"A-afternoon," Riza replied.

Ben turned his eye on the boys. "I suppose you two want to run off and tickle some trout or something," he said.

"How'd you guess?" Maes asked.

Ben shrugged. "Had a feeling," he said simply. "Go ahead. Miss Hawkeye and I can keep each other company. Right, little lady?"

Riza wasn't sure of this at all. She had little experience with strange adults, and she was a wee bit afraid of this tall, dour-looking man. But Maes grinned. "Gee, Ben, that's great!" he said, hopping to his feet and tossing the six-fingered glove unceremoniously in the grass. "C'mon, Roy, let's go!"

Roy shook his head. "I told Riza she could play with us," he said.

"Aw, she doesn't want to, do you, Riza?" Maes asked.

"No," Riza said softly, even though it wasn't true. "Have fun, Roy."

"See?" Maes said when Roy still looked doubtful. "Let's _go_! The day's a-wasting!"

"Go on, son," Ben said in his deep, indolent voice. "Miss Hawkeye and I have things to do. Here." He held out his hand to Riza.

Timidly, she took it, and let him lead her over to one of the logs by the fire. The man sat down, fished into his pocket, and brought out a length of twine.

"You know cat's cradle?" he asked, tying the two ends together so that they formed a loop.

Riza shook her head. Beyond the man's shoulder, she could see Roy and Maes vanishing into the woods.

"Well..." Ben said slowly, looping the string around each of his pinkie fingers. His hands moved quickly, in and out, to and fro, until the string hung between them with a funny, floppy bow in the middle. "There've been an awful lot of flies this year," he said. "Zzz! Bzzz!"

He moved his arms so that the ears of the bow bounced. They _did _kind of look like the wings of a fly, Riza thought. She watched with interest.

"See," Ben said; "flies'll nip at your arms." He swung the thread so it brushed Riza's shoulder. "Or tickle your nose." She couldn't help smiling a little when he did that. "But I'm so quick, I can catch a fly with my bare hands."

He clapped his palms together over the string, and when he opened them again... the fly was gone! There was just a big, single circle of string. Riza clapped her hands.

"Oh, do it again!" she laughed. "Please, do it again!"

Ben nodded soberly and obliged her. After that he made a cat wit whiskers, and owls' eyes that he held over his face like a mask. He made a house and a ladder with a climbing man, a spider web, and lightning that really seemed to flash across his hands as it ravelled from one shape to another. He made a bunch of keys that she could tug... and when she did so, they disappeared like the fly had. Then he told her a story about a bird and a fish and a teacup and a rolly-polly egg, illustrating it with the string.

Best of all, when he was done he sat her on his knee and helped her make some of the simpler ones. By the time the boys came back, their shirtsleeves damp and their faces rosy with laughter (but with no fish in hand), Riza could do the fly, the teacup, the cat, and a little manger. When Roy said it was time to go, Riza almost felt like crying. She didn't want to leave the nice man, who though he didn't smile was very friendly and kind.

Ben patted the crown of her head. "I'll see you again sometime," he said. "And 'til I do, you can practice on your own," he said. Then he gave her the magical circle of string.

So all that summer, during the lonely hours while Roy was working on his lessons or running about with Maes, Riza played with the string. Sometimes Roy would take her to see Ben Hughes, and whenever she went, the man would teach her another trick with the string. By the time the day came for the tinkers to move on, Riza knew all but the very hardest ones – and really the only reason she couldn't do those was because her hands were too little to accommodate the complex movements required.

For the rest of her life, Riza remembered those hours of learning and perfecting the art of cat's cradle as some of the happiest of her rather bleak childhood.


	50. How to Fall

**Chapter 50: How to Fall**

It was during the summer when he was eleven years of age that Roy Mustang was first introduced to the intricacies of hand-to-hand combat.

It was not, of course, Hawkeye-sensei's idea. Alchemists, he said, were men of intellect. Any form of violence diluted that, and prevented the pure pursuit of knowledge. Roy knew these lines by rote, but he couldn't quite reconcile it with his sensei's behaviour. When the mood took him, the adult did not hesitate to slap the boy around, though admittedly Roy had not done anything to warrant use of the belt in almost eighteen months. And if Roy was quick enough, he could usually get between the alchemist and Riza: normally after he got in a few good, solid blows Hawkeye-sensei's temper would ebb and he would stride back to his study, casting some caustic, cutting remark over his shoulder.

Despite this apparent contradiction, Roy was apprehensive when Absalom Hughes first proposed the lessons. When he voiced his concerns, the tinker only shrugged, scratching the crown of his balding head, and said, "Even an alchemist needs to know how to defend himself. It's a hard world out there, son."

Roy didn't need to be told _that_. He remembered. He wouldn't forget; not ever.

So, one sunny afternoon in May when the morning's lessons were done, the garden watered, and the alchemist appeased, Roy stood by the Hugheses' campfire, watching while Maes and his father moved the horses' pickets towards the wagons, so that the little stretch of meadow where they usually grazed was clear.

"Now," said Absalom; "the most important thing to know is how to fall properly. Ira's never really got the hang of it. Ira." He crooked his finger at his next-to-youngest son, who had been smoking a rabbit-tobacco cigarette rolled in tissue paper. It was a habit that Maes claimed he'd picked up in South City the previous winter.

The young man snuffed the cigarette by grinding it between two wetted fingers, slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt, and slouched forwards. Absalom grinned at him, clapping his hands once. Then the two men braced their legs and grabbed one another's shoulders, pushing against each other. For a moment nothing happened as they grappled, each trying for an advantage in the hold. Then Absalom found one, turned swiftly to the left, and hauled Ira over his shoulder. The young man landed in the grass like a sack of potatoes, with a winded grunt.

"You see? That's how you _don't_ want to do it," Maes said. "Let me!"

He came forward and locked arms with his father. After several seconds of circling one another, Maes said, "Left or right?"

"Right," his father told him. Maes nodded once, and relaxed his hold ever so marginally. He flew over his father's back and hit the ground with a soft _thump_. Even Roy's untrained eye could see the difference between this soft landing and the older brother's graceless tumble.

Maes grinned, holding out his arm. His father grabbed his wrist, and the seventeen-year-old sprung easily to his feet. "You want to try?" he asked.

Roy shook his head. He didn't want to be thrown around like that! It would hurt!

"Don't worry," Absalom said good-naturedly. He patted his thigh. "Come here, and we'll start by teaching you how to land."

He put a gentle hand on each of Roy's shoulders, smiling reassuringly. "Keep your knees straight, but bend your waist," he said. Your legs should tip backwards, and I'm going to keep your shoulders right here. I want you to look like a carpenter's triangle, okay?"

"Okay..." Roy said warily, trying to comply. His left knee bent instinctively: he felt like he was going to tip over!

"No, keep 'em straight," Absalom told him. "I won't let you slip."

Roy did his best, stretching back further into the desired position. "I'm going to fall..." he wavered.

"Just hold on," the man coached. "You _are_ going to fall, but not 'til I let go. I'm going to let you go on three, all right? One, two."

He released his hold, and Roy, startled, tumbled backward onto his rump, one bare foot shooting up into the air. He flinched, waiting for someone to laugh at him... but no one did.

"Hey, not bad," Maes said. "You're a natural."

"It was pretty good," concurred Absalom. "But I want you to try again, and this time, when I let go you twist just a little onto your hip, so that the impact doesn't go into your tailbone: that's a good way to get hurt."

He helped Roy to his feet, and they tried again. And again. And again. By the end of the day, Roy was stiff and bruised, but satisfied. He had finally managed five perfect falls in a row.

_discidium_

The tinkers had been in town for a week and a half when Bella Greyson brought the children's new clothes to the Hawkeye house. For the first time, she did so without a prepared defensive speech: she had chosen the cloth and made the arrangements for the sewing, but Mordred had furnished the money. Lian's death had brought about one positive change in the household, at least: there was a great deal more money now. What irked Bella now was that the alchemist didn't seem interested in using it. He might easily have hired someone to repaint the house and replace the slate on the roof. The furnishings within were getting rather shabby, and the kitchen could do with a fresh coat of whitewash. The yard was unkempt, for though Roy did his best, he was sstill rather small to manage the scythe, and when he cut the grass he didn't make it very short or even. Mordred might have paid a likely local lad to take care of that, as well, but he wasn't inclined to do so.

For Bella, who remembered Petra Hawkeye's beautifully kept home, this slow decay was painful. Mordred's mother, a wool-merchant's daughter from New Optain, and so as the dowagers of the time had said "practically a local lass", had taken such pride in the house. In those days it had been a bright, welcoming place full of stylish furniture and handsome accents. There had always been a dish of dainties on the kitchen table, and a mug of tea or a tall glass of lemon ice to welcome even the most unexpected visitor. The revenue from her father-in-law's grist mill had been used to make the large, isolated house a hub of activity and social excitement.

How Petra's only son had turned out such an introvert was a mystery to Bella. She was fond of Mordred, but sometimes he made her so _angry_!

After the children had had a chance to exclaim over their new things, the doctor took two mugs and the teapot, and dared to invade the alchemist's inner sanctum.

He was sitting at the desk, which was covered with, of all things, sheet music. He didn't seem to notice Bella's entrance until she spoke.

"Mordred? I came by with the clothes."

"Clothes? What clothes?" he asked absently, tapping a bar of music with his finger.

"For Riza and Roy. You told me I should just take the money and order whatever I wanted for them." She set down the teapot on the little end table by the settee, and poured him a mug of the steaming beverage. "Mrs. Hampton had a particularly lovely tartan that she fixed into a frock for Riza—"

"Fine, fine," Mordred mumbled, brushing off her attempt to get him to show a little interest in his daughter's life. "Do you know how difficult this is?" he demanded.

"I didn't know you could read music," Bella observed mildly.

"I can't. Not very well, anyway," Mordred said, holding up an elementary text of musical theory. "I need to get a grasp on it, though."

"Why?" Bella asked.

"A third circle," Mordred said cryptically. He reached up and took the tea. "What do you want?"

"To tell you the children have their clothes, though you don't seem to care," Bella told him. "Unless you're interested in the local gossip."

"Let me guess," Mordred mumbled sarcastically. "Some fat farmer's wife dropped her fourth set of twins, the underdog came ahead in the latest checker tournament, the prettiest, smartest girl in the village is throwing herself away on a farmhand from Lisque, and Hughes the Rake is ploughing the local furrows with his usual alacrity. What do you see in these people, Bella?"

"They have good hearts," the doctor said. "Their lives aren't filled with endless drama or the excitement of a brilliant new scientific discovery, but they live their quiet lives with relish. They treasure their spouses and love their children and help their neighbours, and when they die there are crowds of mourners at the graveside; people who know that the world will be an emptier place because they are gone."

Mordred snorted. "I don't want a crowd at my funeral," he growled.

"I'm glad, because you won't have one," Bella said. "Oh, Roy will be there because he respects you, and Riza because she worships you. I'll come unless you're unlucky enough to outlive me. I rather think Bertha Strueby would come, except that she's to be married in September, and then she and Ian are leaving here forever. But beyond that, my dear, I rather think you'll sink into darkness unnoticed."

"How cheerful you are today, Isabella," Mordred said with silky sarcasm. "My, I can't tell you how you've brightened my day."

"Mordred, you could be a part of the community if you wanted to. Then Riza might have some friends of her own, instead of tagging after Roy like a little lost puppy," Bella said. "You'd have some company—"

"I don't need 'company'!" Mordred snapped. He sipped the tea and seemed to reign in his emotions. "I have get more company than I need from the local sawbones."

"Fine," Bella said. "Be facetious, but I know that you're lonely. And even if you like it that way, the children need more social contact. Especially Riza."

"I don't need you telling me how to raise my children," Mordred growled. "If that's all you came here for, then get out."

"It isn't," Bella said. "I came to let you know that the school board has had a bit of an upheaval. Jane Strueby has won some sort of regional teaching award."

Mordred snorted into his tea. "You mean that foolish little chit who didn't even realize Roy couldn't read?" he asked.

"The very same. Anyhow, in light of this she's taken a teaching position at a grammar school in East City. She'll be leaving at the end of the summer term."

"Will she indeed?" Mordred laughed. "What's that to me? The boy is my apprentice now: he has no use for a broken-down one room school."

"I was talking about Riza," Bella said coolly. "Honestly, Mordred, sometimes it's almost as if you've forgotten you have a daughter!"

"What about her? She studies well enough here. I don't mind taking a little time to teach her," the alchemist said.

"I wasn't thinking about your convenience," Bella told him; "though that is a point. Much more importantly, she ought to mix with girls her own age. She's going to grow up into a socially dysfunctional recluse like you, and she used to be such a cheery, sociable child! She deserves a chance to grow into her own person, instead of a pale shadow of whatever you seem to think she ought to be."

Mordred frowned at her, his keen eyes narrowing to slits. "She won't learn anything at that backwater school."

"It was good enough for us," Bella countered. "Mordred, really. You can't mean that you want to keep her a prisoner in this house, do you?"

The alchemist scowled. "Fine!" he said. "Fine. She can start at the beginning of the fall term, provided that that Strueby wench really is gone."

Bella smiled. "Good," she said. "It's about time you looked after her best interests."

"It's not in her best interests," Mordred argued. "She'll never get a proper education, but if you'd rather she be ignorant than lonely, I won't argue."

Her aim achieved, Bella moved to withdraw from the room.

"I can always work extra hard with her these next couple months, to make sure she knows how to study properly," the alchemist growled. Whether he was speaking to her or to himself, Bella didn't care. She had won this round. She smiled over her shoulder and left him alone.

_discidium_

The decision to send Riza to school impacted both the children's lives that summer. Riza was sentenced to spend the larger part of her days in her father's study, working twice as hard as she had before as Hawkeye drilled her in study strategies and learning skills. He didn't want a repeat of the embarrassment of Roy Mustang's stint at school, and though in other respects he scarcely seemed to care about Riza, he was adamant that she should receive a strong education – country school or not.

This increase in Riza's lesson time meant a proportionate decrease in Roy's. Instead of spending every morning with the alchemist, his lessons were limited to Fridays. Otherwise, unless Riza needed help with mathematics problems, he was free to do as he pleased. The expectation was that in the autumn, when Riza went to school, Roy would be able to spend more time working with his sensei.

The arrangement suited Roy just fine. The extra time was put to good use by Maes and his father. Roy learned the rudiments of wrestling, and enough of boxing to know how to land a solid punch and how to dance out of the path of an opponent. Though he was small, Absalom taught him tricks to compensate.

"Remember," he said, as they wove in a circle, Roy watching the adult warily, while Absalom observed his performance with a teacher's fondly critiquing eye. "You're smaller, but that also means you're faster. You can't beat me in an all-out contest of strength, now can you?" He lunged forward and pressed against Roy's shoulders so that he lost two feet of ground before he managed to twist away and dance back to a safe distance. "That's good!" Mr. Hughes cheered. "See, you need to outwit me. Wear me down. I'm bigger, I'm heavier, I'm—"

"Older!" Maes jibed with a fond sauciness that Roy could not help but envy. He couldn't imagine speaking that way to Hawkeye-sensei.

"I was _going_ to say slower," Absalom said, his green eyes twinkling. "So be quick! Keep me busy! Wear me down! Catch me by..."

Roy's foot darted out, hooking around the adult's bare ankle. Maes' father fell, his glasses slipping from his nose. He lay on his side in the grass for a moment, grinning tremendously.

"Well done!" he cheered. "Yes, _exactly_ like that! Now, I'm down. What are you going to do with me?"

Roy frowned. "Sir?"

"If this were a real fight, would I just lie down and laugh and say 'you win: great work'?" Absalom asked. "Of course not! I'd get right back up and try to take you out. Now, if this is just a silly scuffle, that's fine: you wait for your chance to get me down again. But what if we were in a tavern, and I used the chance to grab a broken bottle? What if I'm carrying a knife? You have a brief window of opportunity when your opponent is down to finish him off."

"Couldn't I just run?" Roy asked nervously. This talk of weapons was new. Until now, these lessons had seemed to treat mainly with beating a person in a playful wrestling match like the ones in which the Brothers Hughes occasionally indulged. Now Absalom was talking like he might actually use this stuff against a real enemy: someone who wanted to hurt him.

"You could try," said the adult; "if you're _sure_ you're faster, and that you have the endurance to outlast me, or if you know you can reach backup before I catch you. But there's a loss of self-respect when you run. A man's never the same once he's been forced to retreat. Besides..." He sat up a little and gestured at Roy. "... your back's your most vulnerable point. Don't ever turn your back on an enemy unless you've got someone you can trust with your life to watch it for you."

"I'll watch it, if you want to run," Maes promised. "If he tries to get you, I'll tackle him to the ground!"

Roy looked at his friend, and a moment of clarity passed between them. Maes was only half joking. He didn't want Roy to run... but the promise was real. The bigger boy grinned and came forward so that they could bop one another's fists. "I'll always watch your back," Maes said, his eyes earnest.

"Maybe," Absalom said; "but you're not always around, are you? Now, Roy, if this was a bar fight..."

"You're teaching him how to act in a _bar fight_?" Eli asked incredulously, striding into the clearing with his case of evaluative lenses. "And people call _me_ immoral!"

"I taught you the same tricks when you were his age," Absalom said good-naturedly. "Can you honestly say you don't value those lessons?"

Eli smirked. "That would be telling, now wouldn't it?"

"And we _don't_ want to know!" Maes moaned.

"Roy, if this were a bar fight, your best bet would be to try to get my hands. Stay clear of my feet, now..."

The lessons continued, and the weeks slipped away. When the time came for the tinkers to move on, Roy had a reasonable grounding and a good, practical grasp of the necessary skills. He could beat Maes a little less than half the time, Absalom once in a while if he was especially quick and wily, and Ira practically always. And if Doctor Bella noticed that his skinny body had more resilience to it and his stick-thin limbs had a little muscle now, she didn't mention it to Hawkeye-sensei.


	51. The First Day

**Chapter 51: The First Day**

Riza was so nervous that she could scarcely eat her breakfast. Roy had cooked porridge, and it was hardly lumpy at all, and there was treacle and plenty of milk, but she wasn't enjoying any of it. She just kept glancing at the Third Reader and the new arithmetic book heaped on top of her slate, and every time she did, her stomach would do an ugly somersault.

"It's... not _that_ bad," Roy said, not very convincingly. "Mostly you need to read things, and memorize 'em. You've got a good memory, and you read just fine."

"But the teacher hurt you," Riza breathed. If the teacher had hurt _Roy_, who was so brilliant and gifted that even Papa hardly ever had to chastise him, what would she do to Riza?

"Sure," Roy said. "Because I was dumb. But you're not. You'll be fine."

He still didn't sound like he believed it. Riza's lower lip quivered a little.

Papa came into the room, hardly cognizant of the two children. His hair was in disarray, and he hadn't shaved yet today. He strode to the stove, sniffed the contents of Roy's porridge pot critically, then helped himself to a slice of bread and honey. He turned around, his eyes fell on Riza, and he frowned.

"Are you still here?" he demanded. "Hurry it up: you're going to be late. If you want to go to school, you're going to have to be more responsible than this!"

Riza _didn't_ want to go to school! Why didn't Papa understand that? She wanted to stay home where she was mostly safe. At least here she knew what to expect.

"Come on, off you go," Papa scolded, herding her out of her chair and thrusting the schoolbooks into her arms.

"I'll walk her, sensei," Roy said as he put the lid on the dinner pail.

Riza's spirits rose marginally. If Roy would come with her, it might not be _so_ bad. At least he'd be able to help her find the schoolhouse. She had a vague idea of where it was, but she was so frightened of getting lost and coming late.

"No, you will not!" Papa contradicted. "You have work to do. I expect that book finished by nightfall."

Roy had been assigned to read one of Papa's alchemy books, and he had been having a lot of trouble with it. Not as much as he did with Plato, for though the words were hard the concepts made sense to him, but it was still not easy. Riza, who loved reading, couldn't fathom why Roy found it so difficult.

"But sensei..."

"I said no! If she's big enough to go to school, she's big enough to walk there herself," Papa said.

Riza's heart sank. So Roy wasn't to come with her. The terrible somersaults started again.

Roy lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. "I'm going with her, sensei," he said defiantly. "I'm going to walk her to the schoolhouse and see she meets the teacher."

Papa's jaw tightened. His arm twitched, and Riza was certain that he was going to _hit_ Roy... but then he glowered and said, "Very well, but you're not going to bed tonight until you're finished that book, do you hear?"

"Yes, sensei," Roy said, but not with his usual meek demeanour. He looked at the little girl. "C'mon, Riza. Let's get you to school."

Once they were safely out of the house, Riza trotted forward a little so that she could fall into step with her companion.

"Thank you," she said softly. "For coming with me."

"It's nothin'," Roy grunted. "You don't wanta go alone your first day." He didn't say why this was so.

"Doctor Bella said it's everybody's first day," Riza told him.

"First day back, maybe," Roy said; "but unless they're little kids, or just starting out like you, they've all been there before. At least the teacher's new. Hopefully she's nice."

"I hope so," Riza said fervently.

They walked through the town, and came to the schoolhouse, where a crowd of children were waiting for the summons to go inside. Roy looked around apprehensively, but didn't seem to see any familiar faces. He relaxed marginally.

A girl came skipping up, looking curiously at Riza.

"You're new!" she said.

Riza nodded.

"Is that your brother?"

Riza shook her head.

"I'm her father's pupil," Roy said, quiet pride in his voice. "Who are you?"

"I'm Alayne," the little girl said. She was about Riza's age, with curly brown pigtails and a red checked dress. "You?"

She wasn't talking to Roy. Riza bit her lip nervously. "Riza," she whispered.

"Nice to meet you, Riza," said Alayne. "Norma! Susan! Come and meet Riza!"

Two other girls came running up. One was a little younger than Alayne, but had the same brown pigtails and a dress made of the same cheap red gingham. The other girl was the same age as Alayne and Riza, and she had strawberry blonde hair in a long braid that reached down below her waist. Her dress was made of handsome white muslin with ruffled tiers of sheer cambric, and was as much fancier than Riza's blue cotton as Riza's was fancier than Alayne's.

"Riza, this is my sister Norma," Alayne said, indicating the littler girl. "And this is Susan."

Susan smiled. "Hi, Riza!" she said. "You're new, aren't you? Do you live in town?"

"Just outside," Riza said. "I like your dress."

Susan twirled so that the ruffles billowed around her. "Thank you!" she said. "Mama said I might wear it just for today, since it's the first day of term and we have a new teacher. It's my favourite." She looked Riza over. "Yours is very nice, too."

"Thank you," Riza murmured shyly. Then she turned to Alayne and Norma. "Your hair is very pretty," she said, so that they would not feel left out.

"The Packard girls have the prettiest hair in town," Susan agreed. "Doncha, Alayne?" She tweaked one of her friend's curls lovingly.

"Oh, don't, Sue," Alayne said, blushing.

"How come your hair's short?" Norma asked, cocking her head at Riza.

Susan spoke with a hushed, condoling voice. "Did you have the scarlet fever?" she asked sympathetically.

Riza shook her head. Doctor Bella had cut off all of her hair because short hair didn't get tangles, but she wasn't sure that she wanted to admit to that in front of these girls. She was sure they probably had mommas who took good care of them and loved them and cuddled them and dressed their hair so prettily.

"Short hair's cooler," Roy said, rescuing her. Riza smiled gratefully up at him. "And it's very pretty."

"It is kind of cute," Susan agreed. "And it's different! My daddy says that differences make us special."

"Susan's daddy is Mayor Trenworth," Alayne said, obviously a little in awe.

Riza didn't know who Mayor Trenworth was, but she knew that a mayor was the leader of a town. She nodded politely. "He must work very hard," she said. Her own father wasn't a mayor, he was only an alchemist, but he worked almost all day.

"Sometimes," Susan agreed. "Say, did you hear anything 'bout the new teacher? Daddy won't say, but Mama told me it's a special teacher with extra quail... somethings."

"Qualifictions?" Riza asked.

"What's that?" said Alayne.

Riza considered the question. "Qualifications means that a person went to school or did a test that lets them do things," she said, as if reciting for her father. "Like Doctor Bella. She went to school, and she wrote lots of tests, and then she practiced being a doctor. All that stuff is her qualifications, so that she can do her job."

Susan whistled softly, then clapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry!" she squeaked. "I know ladies shouldn't whistle, but wow! You're smart."

"My papa taught me," Riza said.

"Who's your—"

The door to the school opened, and a man came out onto the step. In his left hand, he held a bell. He rang it, and the students started to file towards the door.

"That means it's time to go in," Roy told Riza quietly. She glanced nervously at him, but he tried to smile. "Come on, I'll stay with you 'til you're settled," he said.

They entered the schoolhouse. The man stood at the front of the room, watching the students shuffle in.

"Everyone who is a returning student, please find the seat you had last term!" the man said. "We need to get organized today. I'm new to you, you're new to me, and it's a new term! Lots of new beginnings all around." He surveyed the classroom thoughtfully. "Any pupils who are new to the school, please put your lunch pails on the back shelf, and line up along the east wall, there. Returning students, please find your old seats!"

There was a great deal of shuffling, and Riza was glad that Roy was there to hold her arm and stay protectively at her side. The man strode up the centre aisle, looking at the students. He was a little under average height, and he had a wiry, athletic look that told Riza that he wasn't a labourer. His clothes were very fine, but rather worn-looking, and his dark auburn hair tumbled in an unruly fashion around his face. Then he turned around, and Riza saw something strange. The right sleeve of his jacket hung limp and empty at his side: where his right arm should have been, there was only cloth.

He was asking the seated students now what class they had been in last term, and making seating rearrangements according to their answers. In general, this meant moving back a row. The room was divided into girls and boys, and the oldest pupils sat nearest the back. By the time the teacher was finished, the front row was vacant, and there were several spaces elsewhere. Only Riza, Roy and two very little children were left standing against the east wall, awaiting instruction.

"Right," said the man. "That's a start. I'll rearrange you all later as I need to. Now, you two must be just starting out."

He nodded at the two littlest children. They came forward, and he settled them in the first row: boy on one side of the room, and the girl on the other.

"That just leaves you two," said the teacher.

"One, sir," Roy said. "I'm not staying."

"You're not? Why not?" the man asked.

"I... I'm her father's pupil, sir. I have to be getting back," Roy said. "I just wanted..." He flushed a little and looked at his feet. "I wanted to make sure that you put her in the right class," he whispered.

"You can be sure of that. Come here, miss," the teacher said, sitting down at his desk. He opened the register book and picked up a pen in his hand... his left hand, of course, for he didn't have a right hand. "What's your name?"

Riza murmured it. She leaned back a little against Roy's hand, which was resting on her shoulder. The man wrote it down. He asked her age, and wrote that down, too. "And your father's name?" he said.

"Mordred, sir," Roy supplied smoothly. "Mordred Hawkeye."

This, too, the man recorded in a clumsy scrawl. The side of his hand smudged the ink a little and made it run. "Very well, Miss Hawkeye," he said. "Let me see your books."

He looked at the Third Reader. "Can you read this?" he asked her.

"Yes, sir," Riza said. Truthfully, she found the Third Reader rather easy, and often read more difficult things, but it was the book that Papa had sent with her, so it must be the one that she was meant to use.

"Well, let's see." He flipped to a passage in the middle of the book, and held it out for her. "Read a little for me."

Riza cleared her throat. "_Amestris is a large nation, comprised of five main regions;_" she read. "_The central region encompasses Central City and the outlying communities. Most of Amestris' industry and manufacturing is found in the central region. The climate is temperate, and the landscape rolling. In the central region, one may find—_"

"Very nice," the teacher interrupted. "Now, can you tell me what some of those big words mean?"

"Which ones?" Riza asked cautiously.

"What about... 'outlying'?"

"That means 'outside, but still close to'," Riza answered. This was easy! He asked just the same questions that Papa did, only less impatiently.

"Good. And 'temperate'?"

"Warm summers and wet winters," Riza said. "Because of the river."

"Hmm," the man said. "Well, you're a very clever girl, aren't you? How are you in mathematics?"

"I know my eight times tables," Riza said, her nervousness dissipating as she began to warm to the compliment. Papa never called her a clever girl. "And I can do long division... but not too long," she added truthfully, lest he think she was being boastful.

"Very well," said the man. "I don't know if I like the idea of putting you with older pupils, but you're certainly ahead of the others your age. We'll try you in the Third Reader class for now, but I want you to let me know if you're having trouble, all right?"

Riza nodded. She took her books and her slate and sat down where the teacher instructed. Roy followed her, squeezed her arm, and smiled reassuringly. "You'll be okay," he whispered. Then he slipped out the door, and Riza was left alone.

The teacher stood up and took a piece of chalk. Clumsily, he printed his name on the blackboard in large, crooked letters. One or two of the boys snickered.

"Good morning," the teacher said. "My name is Mr. Regnier."

"The amazing one-armed man!" one of the girls behind Riza whispered to her friend.

"Cripple extraordinaire," her companion agreed.

"Some of you may have noticed that I am missing something," Mr. Regnier went on. He smiled, pressing a tongue against a gap in his grin. "You're very observant: I had my eyetooth knocked out with a baseball bat when I was eleven," he said.

A couple of the older students laughed appreciatively.

"In all seriousness, though," said Regnier; "I have lost my right arm. I'm not sure quite where I mislaid it, but it doesn't seem willing to find its way home. If you see it, do let me know."

He sat down on the corner of his desk, so that one foot swung just above the ground. "This means that I do not have the tidiest writing," he said, holding up his left hand and wiggling his fingers ruefully. "I expect much better from my students. Now, I understand your last teacher was quite the gifted young lady. I can't replace her, and I know you'll all miss her, but I'm going to try to do my very best, and that's what I want from all of you. Your very best."

He got to his feet again. "After the break, I'll set lessons for each class, and we can start learning together. But since I'm new to your school and to your lovely little town, I'd like to talk a bit about this wonderful country we live in. Raise your hands, please, if you know the answer. What is the name of our country?"

None of the older pupils raised their hands: instead, they gave one another odd, exasperated looks. Riza would have made a move to answer, but she wasn't brave enough. The other younger girls had no such compunctions: Susan, Alayne, and Norma all reached up into the air, along with several of the little boys.

"Yes," the teacher said, pointing to Norma.

"Amestris," she said.

That was just the beginning. He took the whole school through an overview of the Amestrian government, from the Fuhrer and his advisors who made the decisions that affected the lives of every citizen and the parliament who was the civilian voice in the process of ratifying new laws, to the local counsels that saw to the governing of towns and cities. He talked about the military command structure and the brave men and women who served as soldiers to ensure peace and safety for the people. By then, it was recess time, and the students were allowed to go outside.

Riza looked around for the other girls. They saw her, and came trotting up. She smiled.

"Do you want to play with us?" Alayne asked, holding out a long cord with a wooden handle at each end.

"What will we play?" Riza asked.

"Skip rope, of course," said Alayne. "Haven't you ever played skip rope before?"

Riza shook her head. She didn't know anything about it. She only knew the sorts of games that Roy and Maes played, and they weren't especially fun.

"It's easy," Susan promised. "We'll show you.

Both she and Norma took one handle, spreading out the rope between them. They turned their arms so that the rope moved in a slow, lazy arc. Alayne smiled. "Watch me," she said. She stood parallel to the moving cord, and then jumped into its midst. Over and over again, as the rope reached her feet, she jumped up so that it passed under her. The rope made a swishing sound as it moved through the air, and a soft _thump_ each time it touched the grass. Riza watched transfixed. It looked challenging, and fun.

Alayne hopped away from the cord. "You try," she said to Riza.

Timidly, she stepped forward, aligning herself as the other girl had. She watched and waited, and tried to jump... but she mistimed it, and the cord hit her leg.

"That's all right," Susan said encouragingly. "Step back and we'll start again."

This time they turned the rope slower, but again Riza failed to fall into the proper rhythm. The other girls looked a little perplexed. Clearly it wasn't normal for one of their number to struggle with this.

"Let me try again," Riza begged. She knew she could do it this time. She had figured out where she was going wrong. She stepped back again.

When the rope came around, she hopped into its path, her feet in their neat little shoes lifting right over it. It whistled over her head, and came around again. She jumped over it again, and then again.

"Faster!" she laughed. She was doing it! She could skip rope! Susan and Norma obliged her, and the speed increased. Riza jumped up again and again, and they quickened the pace of their turning. Riza could feel her heart hammering in her chest, but it wasn't hammering with fear. It was an exciting, exhilarating feeling that seemed to flow through her whole body, and the _click, click_ of her shoes was so satisfying. She laughed a little. It was so much fun!

When recess was over, it was time to sit quietly and work on lessons. Riza set to work happily, for she had had such a lovely time outside, and she could look forward to dinnertime (which Mr. Regnier called "lunch"), when she could go out again.

Perhaps she liked school after all.


	52. The Crazy Alchemist

**Chapter 52: The Crazy Alchemist**

Roy heard the back door open, and he glanced up at Hawkeye-sensei. The alchemist was busy with the strange groups of lines and dots that he spent so much of his time poring over these days. Roy wasn't sure what they were: they seemed to have something to do with his teacher's research, but they didn't look like any transmutation array he had ever seen. Whatever their purpose, they were frustrating to work with, and after a few hours bent over them the alchemist would be irritable and volatile.

For the moment, though, Hawkeye-sensei seemed absorbed in his work, so Roy hoisted the alchemy text off of his lap and slipped quietly out of the room.

He found Riza in the kitchen, setting down her books on the table.

"How was school?" he asked anxiously.

To his amazement, a tiny smile tweaked at the corners of the little girl's customarily sombre mouth. "It was nice," she said. "The girls let me play with them."

"And the teacher?"

"He told me I have a very good memory," Riza said with quiet pride.

Roy sighed softly. Thank goodness. He knew Riza was a clever child, much cleverer than he was, and he was glad. Intelligence provided protection. If he hadn't been so dumb and ignorant, Miss Strueby never would have had cause to hurt him.

"Where is Papa?" Riza asked. "Does he want to hear my lessons?"

Roy glanced over his shoulder. "He's... in his study..." he said noncommittally, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

Riza nodded, and moved into the corridor. Roy drew close to the kitchen door so that he could hear what was transpiring. He hoped fervently that Hawkeye-sensei would give her just a little attention.

"Papa?" he heard Riza say quietly. "I'm home from school."

"And?" the alchemist grunted. Roy's hope ebbed away.

"D-don't you want to hear my lessons?" the little girl asked.

"Did you recite them at school?" asked the man brusquely.

"Yes..." Riza murmured

"Well, then, why on earth would I want to sit through them?" her father demanded. "Run along and play."

Roy moved into the corridor, intending to interrupt the encounter before the alchemist's patience wore away entirely, but he didn't get the chance. Riza came running out of the study, her pretty face crumpled into a mask of misery.

"Riza..." Roy said empathetically, holding out his arms to her.

She shook her head, pressing her lips together as she fought to hold back tears. She slipped past him and scurried up the stairs, not bothering to skip the bad step. Roy started after her, but from behind him came an irate shout: "Mustang!"

He hurried back down and into the study. "Yes, sensei?" he said breathlessly.

"I told you, you're not allowed to go to bed until you've finished that book!" the man snapped irately. "Leave the girl alone and get back to work."

Roy obeyed meekly, but he couldn't help feeling guilty. It was almost like he was abandoning Riza.

_discidium_

The following morning, the porridge was burnt and full of lumps. Riza tried to eat it, but she just couldn't. She stole a look at Roy, who was bent over his own bowl, scooping food mechanically towards his mouth. He didn't seem to notice how terrible it tasted.

"May I have some bread?" Riza asked quietly. She didn't want to interrupt him, but she was hungry and she had to get ready for school. She didn't want to be late.

Roy grunted softly, looking up at her and blinking. "Yeah..." he said vaguely. He got to his feet, steadying himself against the table.

"I can get it!" Riza told him. She was little and she wasn't useful, but at least she could get herself a piece of bread.

"No, 'sokay," Roy said. He cut her two thick slices, put them on a plate, and brought them to her with the honey pot. "Help yourself," he said.

Then he slumped back into his chair and resumed his breakfast.

Riza ate quickly, and gathered her school things together. She was just about to slip out the back door when Papa came into the room. He swatted the back of Roy's head so that the boy flinched and bent even lower over his bowl.

"Have you learned your lesson?" Papa demanded.

"Yes, sensei," Roy mumbled thickly.

"Who's more stubborn?"

"Y-you are, sensei," Roy sighed. Riza caught a glimpse of his expression as he slouched down again. His unusually pale and strangely pinched face was taut with humiliation.

"Good." Papa smirked ever so slightly. "Next time, think twice before you disobey me."

"Yes, sensei," Roy whispered. His obvious mortification made Riza's heart ache.

"Now clean up this mess you've made," Papa said, waving at the pot full of scorched, congealing porridge; "and then you can go and lie down for a little while."

"Yes, sensei. Thank you, sensei."

Papa turned his eye on Riza, who braced herself for some caustic criticism. Instead Papa observed; "At least _you_ are smart enough to do as you're told, my girl. Run along to school, and stay out of trouble."

"Yes, Papa," Riza said meekly. With one last worried look at Roy, she left the house.

_discidium_

The morning passed uneventfully: Mr. Regnier was working with the littlest pupils on the concept of counting. He had brought a fistful of dried peas so that, using their slates as trays, they could work with physical numbers as well as theoretical ones. Riza and the ten-year-olds had reading to work on, while Alayne and Susan had a writing assignment. At recess time, Riza joined her new friends to skip rope. While she turned the cord for little Norma, Riza's eyes wandered to a knot of bigger girls from the Third and Fourth Reader classes. They were whispering behind their hands, and one of them pointed at the younger girls.

It made Riza feel vaguely uncomfortable, but she had little time to think of it, for soon Mr. Regnier came out to ring the bell. The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, and at dinnertime the four little girls sat in the shade of the schoolhouse to eat.

Even though he hadn't managed to make edible porridge that morning, Roy had still packed Riza's dinner. There was bread with good yellow butter, soft cheese wrapped in waxed paper, an apple, and four of Doctor Bella's soft cookies. Riza smiled a little. He had sent enough for her to share with her friends!

The Packard sisters didn't have a proper dinner pail: they used a tin bucket that was too rusted and leaky to hold water. A faded yellow handkerchief served as a cover. Alayne drew out their meal: black bread spread with bacon grease instead of butter, and a couple of sorry-looking leeks. Little Norma took her share eagerly, and bit ravenously into it.

Riza passed around the cookies, and Susan drew out walnuts and fresh apricots to share, too. Instead of a sandwich she had a boiled egg and little oyster crackers, which she also passed around. Thus pooling their resources, all four girls were able to enjoy a varied and tasty meal.

"My birthday is coming," Susan said. "Riza, can you come to my party?"

Riza swallowed a mouthful of apple. "Your party?" she echoed.

"Yes!" Susan said, her eyes sparkling with anticipatory delight. "We'll have cake and orange ice, and there'll be games and things!"

"It'll be fun," Alayne agreed. "Susan's mama makes wonderful parties."

"I get to come, too!" Norma announced, clapping her hands happily.

"It'll be next Saturday," Susan explained. "At my house. Do you think your mother will let you come?"

Riza hung her head. "I don't have a mother," she whispered, thinking of the grave on the hilltop where her momma lay buried. "She died."

"Oh," Susan's face crumpled with sympathy.

"Who takes care of you?" Alayne asked. She sounded much more curious than pitying, and for that Riza was grateful.

"Roy, mostly," she said.

"Your brother?" Alayne said sceptically. "_Our_ brother couldn't run a house if it had legs and a saddle!"

"He's not my brother," Riza said. "He's..." She stopped herself. She had been about to say _my boy_, but that was silly. Roy wasn't really hers: it was just a dumb thing she used to say when she was a baby. "He's Papa's student," she said.

"The dark-haired one who brought you to school yesterday?" Susan asked. "Ooh, Riza, he's _cute_!"

"Ew!" Alayne exclaimed. "He's a _boy_."

"So?" said Susan. "Boys can be cute."

"Ew," the other girl affirmed with a curt nod of her head. She turned back to Riza. "But you _have_ to come to the party!" she said. "You need to ask your papa."

"I... I can try..." Riza said.

Susan smiled. "Good! I want everybody to come: we'll have such fun!"

Just then, one of the bigger girls came sauntering up.

"I didn't think _you'd_ be seen in this kind of company, Susan Trenworth," she cooed.

Suddenly Susan's pleased expression melted into a scowl. "I like my friends just fine, thank you," she said.

Riza expected Alayne to speak up, for the brown-haired girl was generally the leader of their little group. Alayne, however, was staring down at the hem of her cheap, shabby frock, and didn't seem to want to look at anyone.

"Really?" the bigger girl said. "I expected more from you. I mean, if you want to be nice to the trashy little country girls, that's just charity, but to play with _crazy_ children? I never would have thought!"

"Who's crazy?" little Norma asked. Alayne took her hand and shushed her.

The girl clapped a distressed hand to her cheek. "Oh, didn't you _know_?" she asked. "Didn't she _tell_ you whose daughter she is?"

"I don't know who you're talking about, Fran, so please go away," Susan said primly.

"_Her_, of course!" said Fran, pointing at Riza. "Don't you know about her family?"

Riza felt her stomach twisting. Know what about her family? There wasn't anything wrong with them, 'cept Papa didn't always remember to take a bath 'til Doctor Bella shouted at him.

"Don't you know that's Riza _Hawkeye_?" Fran continued silkily.

Alayne broke out of her discomfited pose just long enough to give Riza a quick look of avid curiosity. "She _is_?" she breathed. "You _are_?"

Riza nodded warily. Susan put her hands on her hips. "I don't care!" she said. "Riza is my friend, and that's that!"

"She's crazy," the older girl said venomously. "Her mother was so crazy that they had to send her away to a madhouse. That's why she died, 'cause she was so crazy!"

Riza wanted to cry. That wasn't true! It wasn't true! "My momma wasn't crazy!" she protested. "She died because the sickness got into her brain: Doctor Bella said so!"

"See? Her brain was sick!" Fran sneered. "That's another way of saying she went crazy!"

"No, _no_!" Riza argued, hopping to her feet and stamping one food emphatically. "She got sick like a cold, 'cept it wasn't in her nose, it was in her brain!"

"You're lying!" laughed Fran. "She was crazy as a snake! And your papa's crazy, too! He's a crazy old alchemist! I heard he's ordering song books through the post office. _Song_ books! And he's gonna try and do _alchemy _with 'em! All alchemists are crazy anyways! And you know what? If you've got two crazy parents, _you _must be crazy, too! You'll go crazy like your mother and you'll try to kill somebody! And if you don't watch out, Susan, it could be you!"

Susan didn't seem capable of speech, but Riza didn't care. She took a defiant step towards Fran.

"My papa _isn't_ crazy!" she snapped.

"Sure he is!" the older girl taunted. "He's nothing but a worthless crackpot alchemist: everybody knows that! He's crazier than your mother was, and soon they'll come and lock him up too, just like they locked up his wife! Then the corporal will come and take you to the state orphanage! Or maybe they'll just take you to the crazy house! Crazy Riza Hawkeye!"

"Papa's a scientist!" Riza argued, loyally defending her beloved father. "He's brilliant! He knows more stuff that you ever will, and he's not crazy! He's not!"

"Crazy, crazy alchemist!" Fran chanted. "Crazy, crazy, cra-ay-zee!"

With a cry of fury, Riza stepped forward and slapped the bigger girl right across the face. "He's not!" she cried, indignant tears streaming down her cheeks. "My papa's not crazy!"

"You think you can hit me and get away with it?" Fran growled. She put out both her hands and pushed the littler girl. Riza stumbled backwards, and landed on her bottom in the grass. "You crazy alchemist's brat! I'll teach you!"

She struck out with her foot, catching the bottom of Riza's ribcage. The smaller girl tried to roll out of the way, but Fran jumped down on top of her and tried to punch her. Riza was too quick: she caught the girl's fist in her own.

"What's going on here?"

Mr. Regnier came striding towards the two girls. He took Fran by the shoulder and lifted her off of Riza.

"She attacked me, teacher," Fran tattled, pointing to the red mark on her cheek.

Riza was still sobbing, overcome by impotent rage. "My papa's not crazy!" she blurted out. "He's _not..._"

"All right," the teacher said calmly. "Miss Juston, I want you to stand with your nose to the schoolhouse wall until I have a chance to investigate. Miss Hawkeye, come inside with me, please."

Riza was weeping too hard to respond, but the one-armed teacher helped her to her feet and guided her into the schoolhouse. He sat her down in the front row, and then fetched her a dipper full of cool water from the drinking pail.

"There, now," he said gently, sitting next to her and helping her take a couple of spastic swallows. "Try to calm down, that's a good girl. Just settle down."

Riza tried valiantly, but the sobs were still hiccoughing through her chest. She took another mouthful of water, struggling to regain control.

"There we are," the teacher went on. "That's it. Just calm down. Good girl."

His kindly tone brought another lump to Riza's throat. She _wasn't_ a good girl. It was only her second day of school, and already she had been in a fight. A fight! Oh, what would Papa say?

The sobs redoubled. The teacher made a motion as if he wanted to hug her, but his only hand was busy holding the dipper. Instead, he used his voice. "Now, Miss Hawkeye... Riza, Riza, I need you to settle down," he soothed. "Just take a couple of nice, deep breaths, and you can tell me what happened."

"S-she said..." Riza sobbed. "She sa-ai-ai-aid my m-momma was c-crazy, an-an-and she died 'cause she was c-c-cra-azy, and she said I'm crazy too-oo-oo an-and I'm gonna d-d-die, an' that my pa-apa's n-nothing but a c-crazy cra-ackpot alchemist, and..."

She couldn't voice her painful indignation. She buried her face in her hands and broke down into incoherent weeping.

The teacher got up, putting the dipper back into the pail, then sat again and curled his arm around Riza's shoulder.

"There, now," he soothed. "That wasn't very nice of Frances to say those things. Not at all. Here, now, calm down, there's a good girl. Just calm yourself, Riza."

He withdrew his touch and produced a fine linen handkerchief, which he offered to the child. Riza shook her head and produced her own from her pocket. Mr. Regnier smiled a little as the child blew her nose.

"Atta girl," he said. "There, now. Can you look at me?"

Riza made a brave attempt. He had such a kind face... not at all like Papa's tense and angry one, or even Ben Hughes' sombre countenance.

"Good," said the teacher. "Now, I don't know about your mother and your father, but I do know about you. You're _not_ crazy. That's just stupid talk, and I'm going to tell Frances that, too. You're a very bright girl, and your papa should be proud of you."

This was nice of him to say, but at the moment Riza was much more worried about her father and the slur that Fran had cast on him.

"He's not crazy!" she repeated adamantly. "He's an alchemist, he's very smart, he's not worthless!"

"No," the teacher said soberly. "No, alchemists aren't worthless. I used to work with alchemists, you know. They're brilliant men. Cold, and hard and fiercely intelligent."

There was a haunted look in his eyes, now, and something else. Riza thought maybe he was sad. Then he smiled pleasantly.

"Now, I don't want you to listen to a word that that girl said," he told her. "Why don't we wash your face, and then you can go and play with your friends while I talk to Miss Juston. Okay?"

"O-okay," Riza said, a little shakily. She tried to smile, but it came out crooked. Mr. Regnier didn't seem to mind, though, because he returned the smile.

Alayne, Susan and Norma were waiting when Riza stepped outside, but no one said a word until the teacher had motioned Fran into the schoolhouse. Then Alayne came up and put an arm fondly around Riza's waist.

"Don't mind Frances," she said bracingly. "She's a bad egg. She always makes fun of Norma 'n me 'cause we're poor and we're country girls. _We_ don't think you're crazy, do we girls?"

Susan and Norma shook their heads. Riza dared a tiny smile. She had good friends, she thought.

And her papa _wasn't _crazy.

_discidium_

Two days later, the issue of Riza's family reared its ugly head once again. This time, it happened before class. Susan came walking up to where Riza, Alayne and Norma were waiting. She looked miserable.

"What's wrong?" Alayne asked, full of genuine concern.

"Mama says Riza can't come to my party," mumbled Susan.

"What?" Alayne exclaimed. "I thought you said all the girls were coming!"

"They are," said Susan wretchedly. She looked up at Riza with pained, apologetic eyes. "Mama says I'm not to play with you. She says you're papa's a reck-something and your mama was some kind of a ball, and I'm not supposed to play with h-ha..." She shivered. "Half-breeds," she finished unhappily.

"That's stupid!" Alayne said stoutly. "Riza's not a half-breed!"

"What's a half-breed?" asked Norma innocently.

"Like a mule," explained Alayne. "A donkey for a father and a horse for a mother."

"Oh," said Norma. She patted Riza's arm. "You're not a mule," she said.

"Mama said..." Susan protested, hanging her head and flushing a little. "I'm sorry, Riza..."

Alayne looked torn. Susan was her best friend, but it was clear that she didn't agree with the ultimatum. Riza stood there, uncomfortable and vaguely ashamed, though she did not know why.

Norma took her hand and looked up at her. "I'm still your friend, Riza," she said sweetly.

Susan made a tiny, choking noise and ran away, vanishing around the schoolhouse. Alayne gasped a little, and then squeezed Riza's hand. "I still... I have to go and..."

Riza nodded mutely.

"Sue!" Alayne called, hurrying after the other girl.

Norma watched her sister go, then squeezed Riza's hand. "I think you're nice," she promised.

"Thanks," Riza whispered softly. It didn't matter, though. Everything was spoiled now, anyway. She hoped that the bell would ring soon. At least inside the schoolhouse she had some value: she was smart, and she worked hard, and because of that Mr. Regnier didn't care that she was a half-breed and her father was an alchemist.


	53. Spots!

**Chapter 53: Spots!**

The news that the new girl was the crazy alchemist's daughter spread quickly through the small school. That Mordred Hawkeye was the last of an old and once well-respected local family was not enough to spare Riza from his present stigma. Twenty years ago he had made the unforgivable mistake of selling the grist mill to a corporation from Lisque, thus surrendering local control of a fundamental asset. He had added insult to injury when he had married a city woman – and not even a proper Amestrian! – when there had been so many eligible village girls to choose from. Still, public sympathy had run high when Davell had died: it was not until the total seclusion of the family that had followed the boy's death that the community had at last tired of Hawkeye's misanthropy and isolationism. Hard feelings that had rankled for two decades were finally set free of the usual social pressures, and it was Riza who bore the brunt.

None of the children would have anything to do with her, except Norma and Alayne. There were a few more incidents of older students attempting to pick on Riza, but Mr. Regnier seemed to possess a sixth sense when it came to bullying. He would surface at the schoolhouse door at the precise moment to stop any altercation. After a while, the children stopped trying... but among themselves Riza was now not only the crazy alchemist's daughter, but the cripple's pet.

She didn't care, or at least she tried not to. Norma and Alayne were company enough, and after a while Susan grew a little less stringent about adhering to her mother's ultimatum, and once again consorted with Riza, at least at school. The scorn of the others didn't really matter, did it?

Riza was careful to keep her travails private. She didn't want Papa to know, and she didn't want Roy to worry. He seemed to guess that something was wrong, but as long as she was able to tell him truthfully about her academic successes, he didn't press her closely enough to uncover her social failures.

The weeks passed, and Roy's birthday came and went. The first snow fell, and one frosty morning Roy came upstairs to remind Riza to put on her union suit as protection against the cold.

Riza complied, but by the middle of the morning she wished she hadn't. She sat in her desk, squirming as much as she dared. She was so itchy in the warm flannel. It was distracting! She couldn't focus on her lessons.

Neither could anybody else. Only about two-thirds of the school was present today: there had been a recent rash of illness, and with the weather so harsh the children who had to come from the country were at home, too. Mr. Regnier tried to keep order, but as it was too cold to send the students out to play at recess, he found himself reigning over an increasingly restless crowd.

"All right, that's enough!" he said at last, taking up his ruler and rapping it on his desks so that the boys fell silent. The students who remembered Miss Strueby's rigid regime tensed instinctively, fearing some kind of retribution. Instead, the teacher smiled.

"I think that's quite enough lessons for today," he announced, strolling across the front of the room in his customary loping manner. "What do you all say we have a spelling bee instead?"

The students looked around in surprise. Spelling wasn't ordinarily considered a fun task, but even the youngest students knew that a spelling bee was different. It was a game: a contest to be won. Sensing the favourable reaction, Mr. Regnier clapped his hands.

"I'll number you off. Ones please line up on my left hand. Twos line up on my right stump."

There were a couple of snickers. Though many of the children were prone to making snide remarks about the teacher's missing limb, the fact that he seemed unfazed by it garnered their respect. Mr. Regnier went down the centre aisle, numbering the children. Soon, the two queues, from youngest to oldest, were formed, an approximately equal distribution of age and gender between them.

Mr. Regnier took out the National Spelling Rubric, and opened it to the first page. He began with easy words, like "cat", "top", and "ball", so that even the very youngest students who had only just finished learning the alphabet could answer correctly. Riza, who was in the same line as Alayne and competing against Susan and horrid Frances Juston, could have spelled her word, "blue", in her sleep.

The next round was a little harder, and Nate from the primary class had to sit down when he didn't know how to spell "gear". Then as the words grew more difficult, more and more pupils were weeded out, returning to their seats to cheer on their teammates.

There were twelve people on Riza's team, and thirteen on Susan's, when it was time to break for dinner. The students ate quickly, for they were eager to return to the contest. Now that she was adjusting to the excitement, though, Riza's itchiness crept back. Her arms itched and her legs itched, and even her torso itched. She guessed maybe the scratchy flannel was poking through the weave of her combinations. She wanted to scratch, but that wasn't polite, so she tried to focus on the spelling instead.

She spelled "haughty", "magnify", "pamphlet" and "deliverance" correctly. Each victory brought fresh excitement as with every round the two lines grew shorter. Now Riza's line was in the lead, with seven spellers remaining, while Fran's line only had six. But then Alayne misspelled "homonym", and had to sit down. Riza and Susan were the only little girls left: all of the others were at least eleven. Susan spelled "luscious" correctly, and Riza was right about "wheelwright". One of the biggest girls, who was nearly sixteen, missed out the "E" in "traceable", whittling Riza's team down to five.

"Miss Trenworth, please spell "sojourn"," Mr. Regnier said. "As in the sentence 'Her sojourn in Central was a pleasant one'."

"S-sojourn," Susan said nervously. "S-O, so, D-G-E-R-N, jern. Sojourn."

Mr. Regnier shook his head regretfully. "I'm sorry, Susan, no," he said. "Please take your seat."

Susan moved happily to sit next to Alayne, and they whispered conspiratorially together, smiling.

"Riza?" Mr. Regnier said. "Can you spell it?"

Whispers of "cripple's pet!" and "crazy Hawkeye!" rippled through the room, but Riza ignored them. She thrust up her chin.

"Sojourn," she said, trying to see the word in her mind's eye. "S-O, so. J-O..." Like journey, she thought. "U-R-N, journ. Sojourn."

The teacher rewarded her with a warm smile. "Well done!" he applauded, then turned to Fran, who was scowling.

"Miss Juston, your word is "rhapsody"," he said.

"Rhapsody," Fran said. "R-A-P... no. No, R-H-A-P, rhap. S-O, so. D-Y, dee. Rhapsody."

So she, too, moved to the back of the line again. The boy after her, though, misspelled his word, and now the two teams were even: five and five. Then Riza spelled "impetuous", and Fran spelled "camouflage", and four more spellers were weeded out. Now on Riza's team there was herself, one big girl, and one twelve-year-old boy; while Fran and her friend from the Fourth Reader remained standing with Melody Grimes, who was the cleverest of the pupils in the top class, and was trying for her teachers' exams in the spring.

Then it happened. The boy in front of Riza spelled his word correctly, and it was Fran's turn. Mr. Regnier asked her to spell "paraphernalia".

"Paraphernalia," she said hesitantly, then smiled nastily, looking right at Riza. "P-A-R-A, para. P-H-E-R, pher. N-A-L-L, nail. I-A, ia. Paraphernalia."

"I'm sorry, Frances, that's incorrect," Mr. Regnier said. He almost sounded... satisfied.

"But—" the mean girl protested.

"Please have a seat," the teacher told her. Fran had no choice: she stomped back to her desk and sat down.

Riza braced herself, trying to ignore the itchiness of her long underwear. It was her turn to try...

"Riza, can you spell it?" Mr. Regnier asked. He looked oddly anxious. "Paraphernalia."

"Paraphernalia," Riza repeated carefully. "P-A-R-A, para." Slowly, slowly, she thought. She had to be careful. "P-H-E-R, pher. N-A-L, nail. I-A, ia. Paraphernalia."

She exhaled what air was left in her lungs, deflating in disappointment. She had spelled it wrong.

"That's correct, Riza! Well done!" Mr. Regnier very nearly cheered. "Well done!"

Riza's eyes went wide with amazement, and then the thrill of victory coursed through her. She had done it! She had outspelled the nasty, stupid girl who said Papa was crazy! Even though she was only seven and Fran was ten, she had outspelled her!

And the bee wasn't over yet. The next round was a hard one, and at the end of it, there were only three contestants left: Riza and the big girl on one side of the room, and Melody Grimes on the other.

Riza spelled "reminiscence" correctly, and Melody got her word as well. Then the other big girl misspelled "sepulchre".

Now it was only Riza and a young woman more than twice her age. The class was watching with rapturous interest. Melody correctly spelled "sepulchre", and Riza got "trichotomy". She could hardly notice the itchiness now: she was too intent on the competition. Melody tackled "elucidate", and Riza "pyrotechnic".

"Vignette," said Melody primly. "V-I-G, vig. N-E-T-T-E, nette. Vignette."

"Very good. Riza, please spell 'prospicience'," the teacher said.

Riza swallowed enormously. Prospicience. It was such a hard word. She had never even heard it before! "M-may I have it in a sentence, please?" she asked.

Mr. Regnier nodded. "Prospicience. As in 'The General's strategy displayed great prospicience'."

Riza closed her eyes. Just sound it out. "P-R-O-S, pross," she said. "P-I-T, pish." She tried to focus, but it was just too hard. _She was so itchy in this stupid, stupid union suit!_ "I-A-N-C-E. Iance. Prospicience."

There was a silence. Mr. Regnier smiled kindly and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Riza, that's not correct," he said. "Please take your seat."

Riza hung her head and shuffled to her desk. She hadn't spelled it right. She was so stupid!

"I-E-N-C-E," Melody was saying. "Ience. Prospicience."

The half of the class who had been on her team erupted into applause – all except Susan, who with Alayne was looking back in an attempt to cheer Riza up. It didn't work. She had failed the spelling test, and she was _still_ itchy. Only now she was tired and cross, too.

_discidium_

Roy was sitting on the floor by the stove, blacking Hawkeye-sensei's boots, when Riza came in through the lean-to door, bringing a flurry of snow and a wall of bitter cold in with her.

"How was school?" Roy asked pleasantly. He had had a frustrating afternoon, but that wasn't Riza's fault, and he was determined not to let it show.

Riza didn't answer him. She dropped her books and slate on the table, put her dinner pail on the counter, and started to unravel her layers of winter clothing.

"Riza? How was school?" Roy tried again as her face came into view. It was creased into a frustrated frown. "Riza?"

"Oh, leave me alone, you stupid boy!" Riza snapped. "Just you leave me be!"

With that, she threw down her coat on the floor and stomped up the stairs, taking care to throw her entire weight onto the bad step so that it rang out like a canon.

Roy blinked, a little shell-shocked. Riza was _never_ that impatient. Never! He wanted to go after her, but his hands were covered in boot-black, and if he didn't finish this before Hawkeye-sensei came out to fix dinner, he would be punished.

When dinnertime came, he called Riza down. The girl came, but she didn't look happy. She picked at her food listlessly until the alchemist finished his meal and vanished back into his study. Then she pushed away the plate.

"You haven't eaten anything," Roy said mildly, scraping up the last of his stewed potatoes.

"I'm not hungry," Riza pouted. She scratched the middle of her chest through her dress. "That icky long underwear made me itchy!"

"You can take it off now," Roy told her. "I only wanted you to wear it to school so you wouldn't catch cold."

"I _did _take it off!" Riza wailed. "I'm _still _itchy!"

"Oh," Roy said. "Well, maybe if you ignore it, it'll go away."

"It's not going away!" Riza said crossly. She smacked the table. "I'm _itchy_!"

"Maybe it's bug bites," Roy said.

Riza fixed him with a withering glare. "There are no bugs in winter, stupid!" she said. "It's all your fault: you made me wear the union suit, and the flannel made me itchy! It put itching things under my skin!"

She got up and flounced away, leaving Roy alone and bewildered. She was in such a bad mood... but why?

He felt bad leaving her alone, so when he had washed the dishes, he went upstairs. Riza was lying face down on her bed, wearing only her combinations.

"Why are you dressed like that?" Roy asked.

Riza yelped and tried to cover herself with her quilt. Since she was sitting on top of it, that was not easily accomplished. "Go away!" she said. "You're not s'posta see my underwear: it's private!"

Roy wasn't going to be deterred. "It's cold up here," he said. "You oughta put on your nightgown."

"I don't want to!" Riza said. "I'm hot! I'm hot and I'm itchy, and I don't want my nightgown!"

Roy came further into the room. Riza _did_ look hot. There were bright red blotches blooming on her cheeks. As he drew nearer, he spotted something on her collarbone, just where the top of the combinations ended. It was a funny-looking red dot.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing.

Riza couldn't see it, for her chin was in the way. "What's what?" she said in annoyance. "This isn't funny! I'm _itchy_! I don't want to play games with you!"

"It's not a game," Roy said. "There's another one!"

He reached out for Riza's buttons. The girl tried to slap his hands away, but Roy was frightened and determined. He deftly unbuttoned the combinations and pulled the fabric back to expose the child's chest. His throat constricted.

Riza's pale skin was _covered_ with red spots! They were tiny, tinier than a slate-pencil, and they spread over her whole chest, wrapping round to her back. Riza looked down at her belly with interest.

"Hey, I'm spotty!" she said, her discomfort momentarily forgotten. "I'm spotty _and_ I'm itchy!"

Roy knew what spots meant. He had had them himself, _before_. Living on the streets there were few childhood diseases he hadn't contracted. He was suddenly very frightened. Riza was sick! He had done something wrong, and now Riza was sick! Maybe he had made bad food, or not washed her clothes well enough. Maybe it was because she had only just started wearing her union suit, instead of putting it on weeks ago when the nights first turned cold. Oh, he had done something, and now Riza was sick! Sometimes sick people died! What if Riza died? What would he do then?

He backed form the room, a tremor starting up in his hands. "Sensei!" he screamed, his fear coming out in his voice. "Sensei!!"

There was pounding on the stairs as the man came running. "What is it?" he growled, halfway annoyed and halfway frightened.

"Riza's sick!" Roy cried in consternation, pointing.

"I'm sick?" Riza asked, her own eyes widening with fright.

Hawkeye took one look at her, felt her forehead, and brushed back out of the room. "She's fine," he said coolly. "It's nothing."

"But she's got _spots_!" Roy protested desperately. Didn't sensei see? Sometimes people with spots died! Maybe it was smallpox! Maybe it was measles! What if it was the flesh-eating disease that the old men in the alleys had always talked about, laughing at the fear in his little childish eyes? What if Riza died?

"I'm telling you she's fine," Hawkeye grumbled. "But _you _won't be if you interrupt my work again!"

"But sensei—"

"She's _fine_," the alchemist repeated. "If you're so worried about it, tell someone who cares. Go and fetch the doctor if you like: it's your nose and you can freeze it off on a fool's errand if you want to!"

He stumped down the stairs, and Roy could hear the door to the study slam closed.

Riza was watching him with wide eyes. "Roy?" she asked. "Am I really sick?" Then she wriggled, rubbing her nails against her breastbone. "I'm really itchy, that's for sure."

Roy stared speechlessly at her. She was covered, simply _covered_ in spots! The panic had not subsided. His chest was constricting and his heart was racing and he felt nauseated with terror and apprehension. Riza had spots! She was sick! What if she died? He had to go for Doctor Bella right away!

He charged down the stairs, scarecely bothering to cram his shoes onto his feet before running out into the night and the snow.


	54. Schism

**Chapter 54: Schism**

The kettle started whistling, and Bella braced herself for the effort of getting out of her chair and crossing the kitchen. Before she could make a move, however, her student sprung to her feet.

"I'll get it, Doctor Greyson," she said eagerly, plucking the kettle off of the stove and pouring the steaming water into the teapot.

Bella smiled. "Thank you, Sarah. I must be getting old: I envy you your energy."

They had spent the day doing rounds in the swift little cutter: there was an outbreak of chicken pox, which added an extra burden to the typical winter workload. Bella was thankful she had help: the student from the Eastern Faculty of Medical Arts was both intelligent and willing to work. Her knowledge base was sound, and she was more capable than Bella remembered being at her age. Soon she would be able to see to simple cases unsupervised. In another ten months, she would be a practicing physician. Taking her on as an intern had been one of the smartest things Bella had done in a long time.

"I didn't work as hard as you did today," the girl said generously. "I can't believe how stubborn that man was about you setting his leg."

Her name was Sarah Lauren, and she was only twenty-one. She had a sweet, honest face and soft golden hair that she wore down, curled in a gentle ponytail that fell over her right shoulder. She had a trim little figure and the becoming look that a woman obtained when she was sure of herself and pleased with her lot in life. Bella remembered that look. She had seen it in the mirror once upon a time. She couldn't say quite when it had vanished from the reflection, but it was gone now.

"People in pain do stupid things," Bella said. "Sometimes dangerous things. If you can do something, anything, to relieve their pain, even temporarily, it improves the odds that they'll cooperate, and makes the situation safer for all concerned."

Sarah laughed a little. She had a pretty, silvery laugh that filled a need in the empty surgery. She could have been Bella's daughter, the doctor thought wistfully.

"You make it sound like a patient might hurt you!" the girl said.

"They could," Bella told her seriously. "I've had one or two farmers take a swing at me, you know. You learn to be alert and quick on your feet."

"It must be wonderful to have your own practice," Sarah said. "Though doesn't it get lonely? Wouldn't you like to have another doctor to confer with sometimes?"

"That's why I've got you," Bella said, pouring the tea. Sarah blushed a little, suddenly looking a little shy. "Enough shop talk. Why don't you tell me more about this handsome young man of yours?"

Sarah's eyes grew misty, and her voice took on a dreamy quality. "He's perfect," she sighed. "I liked him from the very first day of classes, you know. It's funny how you can be friends with someone for so long, and you never even realize that you're falling in love."

Bella said nothing, but dragged in a scalding mouthful of tea and hoped the girl would just go on, preferably moving a little further from a sensitive point.

"We didn't even start stepping out 'til the end of last year," Sarah said, much to the physician's relief. "But then, of course, he wanted me to meet his mother..."

For a moment she looked almost shell-shocked. Then she smiled. "But she likes me now," she said. "At least, I hope she does."

"I know you probably don't hear this very often," Bella said; "but you're right to wait until you're finished your training before you get married. Rushing into things is no good for either of you."

Sarah laughed ruefully. "You're right, I _don't_ hear that often. I can't tell you how many women think I'm a fool for not reeling him in the moment he bit! But you see, this way we can set up practice together, and—"

Someone was hammering at the front door. This time, it was Bella who was up first. Older she might be, but in a moment of emergency she could be as spry as any idealistic young lady!

She opened the door and cried out in consternation. "Roy! Good gracious!"

She dragged the boy into the entryway. He was without coat or hat, and his tears were freezing to his cheeks.

"Sarah, fetch me a blanket!" Bella shouted, She herded the child inside, letting the door slam closed. "Roy, what on _earth_ are you doing?"

"Riza," Roy choked out between chattering teeth. He must have run the mile and a quarter from the Hawkeye house, for there were cold lines of frost on his forehead where the sweat had frozen. Bella knelt down and started rubbing his forearms and chest vigorously. "S-s-she's s-sick."

The intern came back with the quilt from her makeshift bed in the parlour, and Bella swathed the boy into it. He was twelve now, and though still painfully thin and uncommonly short for his age, he was too tall for her to lift with ease, so she sat down on the floor and pulled him into her lap, hugging him tightly and chaffing her arms up and down around his body.

"Sick? What's wrong?" Bella asked.

"She's... she's got spots!" Roy cried frantically. "She's hot and itchy and she's got red spots all over! What if she dies? W-what will I do?"

Sarah laughed a little, and Bella suppressed a smile. What a dear boy he was, to be so worried... but the two women had seen at least a dozen such cases today, and more over the last week.

"Oh, sweetheart, she'll be fine," Bella promised. "It's chickenpox!"

"Pox?" Roy repeated in a ragged exhalation that sounded suspiciously like a sob. "Oh, no-oo-oo..."

"No, honey, _chicken_pox," Bella said. "They're harmless. Riza can't catch smallpox: I inoculated her when she was just a baby. She's going to be all right."

Roy seemed to regain his muscle tone. He sat up a little so that he could look at her face, scanning it for signs that she was fibbing. "She is?"

"Sure," Sarah said, squatting as best she could in her slim, fashionable skirt. "Everybody gets chickenpox when they're little. I'll bet she caught it at school."

She looked questioningly at Bella, who nodded, filling in the relevant details of the case. "Riza Hawkeye," she said. "She's seven years old. Otherwise healthy."

Sarah gave a curt, businesslike nod as she categorized this into an appropriate compartment in her doctor's brain.

"When did you see the spots?" asked Bella.

"Just n-now," Roy said, making a visible effort to calm himself. "I called sensei, but he said... he said..." He shivered a little in a way that had nothing to do with his frigid flight through the village.

"He brushed you off," Bella said knowingly. The boy nodded. "Well, it's true chickenpox aren't dangerous, but he might at least have told you that. I'll tell you what."

She got the boy to his feet and stood up herself.

"I'll come home with you, and make sure Riza's all right, and show you what to do for her. How does that sound?"

"Thank you," Roy said fervently.

"I can do it, Doctor," Sarah volunteered. Bella smiled at her. It was lovely that she was so eager.

Still, she shook her head. "No, I'll take this one," Bella said. "It's... something of a special case. I'll fill you in later. For now, young man, we'll find you a coat..."

Five minutes later, the two of them were walking briskly through the snowy streets, Roy swimming in Sarah's tailored anorak and holding the physician's hand as if to reassure himself that he had roused her successfully to action.

The Hawkeye house with its darkened windows appeared out of the night. Inside, Bella took Riza's temperature with her mercury thermometer, finding her feverish, but not dangerously so. The blemishes were all over her torso, and beginning to spread to her limbs. This was a full-fledged case, all right. In a couple of days the child would be in a veritable torment of itching. At first Riza was understandably irate, but as Bella chatted with her, her mood improved dramatically. The doctor then settled her into a baking soda bath with instructions to have a good, long soak. Then Bella went out into the cold corridor, where Roy was waiting anxiously, his back pressed to the wall.

"She'll be just fine in a few days," she promised, smiling at him.

"Are you sure?" Roy said nervously. "I thought it was smallpox, or measles, or..."

Bella shook her head. "Nope, it's definitely chickenpox. There's a bout of it going around: by the end of the week half the school will have it. Riza's going to be very itchy for a few days: she'll need to stay home from school. Then the spots will turn into little scabs, so it's important that she doesn't scratch. I told her that, but she'll probably need reminding."

She drew in a breath and continued the instructions that she had recited no less than twenty times in the last week and a half. "Put two tablespoons of saleratus into a tub of warm water and let her soak in it if she's too itchy. If she's going to be upstairs, she needs to be in bed, under the covers. If she's down by the fire, she doesn't need to worry about that, so long as her feet stay warm. When the scabs start healing, she can go back to school. I'll write all this down for you."

That was the end of the usual speech. It was more than enough for the average capable mother, but Roy wasn't a parent, or even an adult. He was a boy, and he wouldn't likely get much support from Mordred. Had Riza been sick with anything more serious than chickenpox, Bella really would have had to consider removing her from the house.

"Most importantly," she said, looking Roy firmly in the eye; "if you ever need any help or have any questions, I want you to do exactly what you did tonight: come and fetch me. I'll come quick as I can, or I'll send Sarah to help. Only next time, _please_ put on your coat."

Roy nodded. "Yes, Doctor Bella," he said.

"Good man. Now, the other thing is that chickenpox is very contagious." At the boy's blank look, she translated. "It's easy to catch. Have you had it?"

"I had spots once," Roy said. "I think I was six. It was summer and I felt so sick. I hid under a henhouse and slept and slept. There were lots of eggs to eat, but I didn't want 'em." He frowned in thought. "I was itchy all the time, though. Not just when I had spots."

Bella's stomach twisted a little. The boy was so acclimatized to this semi-normal life that it was easy to forget that he had survived on his own for so long. The incident he was describing – malaise, fatigue, lack of appetite – seemed more consistent with measles than chickenpox, but that didn't mean he'd never contracted it. She remembered the scabies that had covered his emaciated little body, and wondered if a little child would even notice chickenpox compounded upon that.

"Well, you might not get it, but if you do we'll cope with it," she said as cheerfully as she could. "Now, why don't you go and have a glass of milk. I need to talk to Hawkeye-sensei."

The boy nodded, and they went downstairs together, parting ways in the corridor. Bella didn't bother with the nicety of knocking: she shoved Mordred's door open, and slammed it closed. The alchemist didn't even look up from his writing.

"Your daughter is ill," Bella snapped caustically, fixing him with a murderous glare. "Or hadn't you noticed?"

"Of course I noticed," Mordred said in mild irritation.

"And?" Bella yelped. "What were you going to do about it? Wait until I just happened to come by?"

"It's chickenpox. It's harmless," Mordred mumbled absently. "I didn't want to waste your time."

"You don't know that! It could just as easily be measles, or smallpox!" Bella snapped.

"No it couldn't," Mordred said. "I know what chickenpox looks like. Davell had it. It's just one of those things every child goes through. Riza's a little slow, that's all. Probably because I _wisely _kept her away from that percolator of disease they call a school."

Bella wanted to hit him. It was one thing not to dote on a child. It was quite another to ignore illness. "I ought to take her away from you!" she snapped. "Even if you didn't deign to call me, you should have done something for her!"

"There's nothing to do," Mordred said. "Just tell her not to scratch, or she'll wind up with scars, put her in a bath of baking powder if she's itchy, and wait it out."

"Baking _soda_! And a_t_ the _very least_ you could have told the children what it was!" Bella cried, exasperation abolishing her last shreds of self-control. "Roy came to my surgery in tears, without a coat, absolutely convinced she was dying! You put that poor boy through hell tonight, because you're too distracted with your damnable alchemy!"

"Go ahead, call me a crackpot and a heretic!" Mordred sneered, finally turning in his chair. "You think I haven't heard those lines before?"

"I don't give a damn if you're a heretic, and I'll tolerate a crackpot," Bella told him; "but you're a negligent, egocentric son-of-a-bitch, Mordred Hawkeye! I think it was nature's mistake to make you a father in the first place!"

"Nature seems to be doing all it can to rectify the situation," Mordred sneered. "Two children in the earth already: Riza can't be far behind!"

No blade could have hurt as much as those words. Bella fell silent as her chest was torn open and her soft organs spilled out onto the study floor. She watched them, oddly detached, aware that she was dying...

Mordred was pale. "Bella," he croaked. "Bella, I didn't mean..."

He tried to grab hold of her arm, but Bella pulled back. She could feel the tears oozing from her eyes, but she was powerless to stop them.

"I'm sorry," Mordred moaned breathlessly. "Bella, I'll take care of her, I promise I will. I... I love her, Bella. You know that. I love her..."

The doctor tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. There was only anguish, and the great, bitter void where her heart used to be. Who was he, this cruel, soulless creature with the unkempt hair and the hollow eyes? Where was the Mordred she had known? The laughing child, the sentimental teenage boy who saw everything too clearly and felt everything too deeply to fit into the small provincial town, the bold and confident young man whose fingertips burned with alchemical power, the radiant groom with his exotic bride on his arm, the doting father... what had happened to him? What force of darkness had stolen him away, leaving only this bitter, hateful shell?

And why did it hurt her so much?

"I.. I'm still your doctor," her voice said. She heard it as if from a great distance. It sounded so quiet, so wretched. "I'll stop by to check on Riza in... a few days... and... and as soon as she's well I want the children to come to my house for dinner once a week. Someone has to make sure they're fed properly. I... goodbye, Mordred."

The farewell came too late. She realized that now. The Mordred she had known was gone, long gone. She retreated from the room, scarcely able to drag the door to before her knees began to tremble.

She went to the kitchen door and spoke some pleasant platitude that brought a thin smile to Roy's lips. Then she scribbled her instructions for Riza's care onto her pad, and fled the house, dragging on her coat as she went.

Back in the safety of her own home, Bella fled up the stairs, ignoring the anxious questions from the concerned student. She careened into her room and threw herself on the bed, overcome with uncontrollable tears for the first time since her stillborn delivery almost three decades before.

_discidium_

Riza was itchy, but she couldn't scratch. Roy had said so at least a hundred times. She couldn't scratch. But she was _so itchy_!

Especially her back. It itched so badly that she had taken off her combinations, replacing them with pantalets. That helped a little bit, but she couldn't go downstairs in nothing but her undergarments, so she had to stay under her covers. The blankets weighed down on her hot, itchy back, and they were very nearly driving her crazy. She wanted another baking soda bath, but she had just had one, and she didn't want to bother Roy. He looked so tired: he was working extra hard to take care of her and still keep up with his studies. Riza knew that it was selfish, but she _wanted_ him to take care of her. She liked being pampered and petted and made much of. It was nice, and Roy was very good at it. Still, she felt guilty because she was well aware that he was wearing himself out, so she bit her lip and tried to endure the itchiness for just a little longer.

When she wasn't itching, chickenpox was actually very interesting. The funny red spots with their white centres were all over her chest and shoulders, her arms, her legs... there was even one on her right big toe! And she didn't really feel sick, just itchy, itchy, ITCHY!

The bedroom door opened, and Riza smiled into her pillow. Good old Roy, he was coming to check on her. Then a large, spidery hand set a basin down on her bedside table. Riza shrank towards the warm wall, frightened.

Papa pulled back her covers and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You must be itchy," he said.

He didn't sound angry... Riza dared to nod, watching him with one sharp eye.

Papa reached into the basin and wrung water out of a rag. Gently, he started to sponge her back. She hissed a little: the water was cool. But it also felt good, and it smelled of peppermint. As Papa wetted the cloth again, Riza found herself relaxing a little.

"That's my girl," Papa said softly. He used his free hand to stroke her hair. "I'm sorry you're sick."

"I'm not _very_ sick," Riza murmured. "Just itchy." She couldn't help wrinkling her nose distastefully.

Papa made a quiet humming noise and went on wiping down her back. It felt so nice and soothing. Papa's thumb stroked the gentle curve of her spine.

"Your skin is so soft, Riza," he said. "And smooth."

She smiled a little. He had called her Riza! "'Cept for the chickenpox," she said, trying to make a little joke.

"They'll heal..." Papa pensively. His fingertips brushed her shoulder blade. "You have a pretty back. Soft, smooth. So white. Like new vellum."

Riza didn't know what vellum was, but the way Papa said it made it sound exotic and romantic: something he loved. She felt a warm flush of happiness. Papa thought she had a pretty back! Suddenly she ached to be held, and acting on an impulse that was a remnant of the child she once had been, she sat up and crawled into his lap.

Papa stiffened with surprise. Then he patted the crown of her head awkwardly, picked her up, and settled her back in bed. "You need to stay under the covers, or you'll catch your death," he said flatly, tucking her in. He picked up his basin and left the room.

Riza's lip quivered, but she ground her teeth together until it stopped. She wouldn't cry. He never hugged her any other time: why would today be any different? He didn't love her anymore, but at least he wasn't angry today. And he thought she had a pretty back. Maybe that was enough to be happy about.

Not quite, she thought wistfully. She wanted her papa to love her again.


	55. Nursing and Scheming

**Chapter 54: Nursing and Scheming**

Riza was feeling much better, and Roy was finally able to have a little time to himself. It wasn't that he begrudged the little girl the attention that he gave her, but he was only twelve, and he had neither the skill nor the stamina required to run a household, tend to a sick child, and keep pace with Hawkeye-sensei's unwavering expectations all at once. Doctor Bella had come by at intervals over the last few days, to check on Riza and to bring food, but she never stayed longer than she had to and she never went near the alchemist. Roy wondered what was wrong.

Hawkeye-sensei was behaving strangely, too. He was brusque and irritable with Roy – more so than usual – but of late he had been uncharacteristically considerate of Riza. Not loving, exactly, but he had visited her upstairs at least once a day, and on Tuesday afternoon he had even deigned to read her a story. Roy was bewildered by this sudden show of affection. He could only suppose that it was because the little girl was ill.

The doctor had stopped in yesterday, and had pronounced Riza fit to return to school on Monday. It was hard to gauge how Riza felt about this announcement. Indeed, Roy was finding it more and more difficult to tell what she was thinking. The signals were all still there, but Riza was getting very good at minimizing them and hiding her feelings. Roy could empathize, for he tried to hide his emotions, too – especially the negative ones. Riza seemed the opposite. It was easy to tell if she was angry or sad, but so hard to be certain that she was happy. It was almost as if she was afraid to look to cheerful, lest her joy be snatched away.

So she sat at the table, studying her reader inscrutably. There were a couple of fading blemishes on her face, but otherwise it was almost impossible to tell that she had been ill.

Roy struggled with the heavy straw broom, trying to sweep under the table without disturbing Riza. As he passed behind her, he felt a surge of possessive protectiveness. She was getting better, and even if he had let her get sick, at least he had also taken good care of her during her convalescence. Doctor Bella had said so.

"Roy! Get in here!" The irate voice came from the hallway. Roy smiled reassuringly at Riza, who looked suddenly nervous. Then he hurried to the study.

The alchemist was sitting at his desk, bundled in his smoking jacket. The fire was blazing in the hearth, but the alchemist looked very cold.

"Yes, sensei?" Roy said respectfully.

"Make me another pot of tea!" Hawkeye ordered, waving a shaking hand at the empty vessel that stood on the corner of his desk. "And be quick about it. I'm half frozen."

Roy nodded meekly, hurrying off to put on the kettle. He had only just done so, when another annoyed summons rang out. "Roy! Where are you?"

"Putting the kettle on, sensei," he said, trotting back into the room.

"Throw a fresh log on the damned fire. It's cold as a witch's heart in here." The alchemist wrapped his arms around his abdomen, rocking a little. "And hurry up with my tea!"

Roy hastened to stoke the fire, and then went back to the kitchen, where the water was still heating.

"Roy!"

Riza was watching him nervously now. She knew that her father was upset, and that meant danger. Roy wanted to say something comforting, but his teacher's angry shout interrupted him.

"Roy! Damn it, where are you?"

He was clutching the corner of the desk now, and he looked terrible. His face had an unhealthy grey hue to it, and there were bright red fever spots blooming on his cheekbones. He glared at the boy as he entered.

"Why didn't you come when I called?" he demanded.

"I was... the tea, sir," Roy said helplessly.

"I need a blanket," Hawkeye-sensei said, his teeth rattling against each other. "It's too cold in here."

"Y-yes, sensei," Roy said nervously. He ran up the stairs so quickly that he had a stitch in his side by the time he reached the master bedroom. He snatched the quilt for the alchemist's bed, and hastened back down. In the kitchen he could hear the kettle whistling, and he hesitated, torn between his present mission and the squalling cacophony to his right.

An angry shout decided the matter. "Damnation, where is that boy?"

As Roy came near, the alchemist snatched the blanket and drew it over himself, shivering violently into it. At the moment of exchange their hands touched and Roy drew back with a small gasp. His teacher's skin wasn't cold, as he had expected. It was hot.

"Sensei?" he ventured. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay," Hawkeye growled. "I'm just damned cold."

"I... I think you're sick," Roy said. "Maybe it's chickenpox. I should go and get Doctor Bella..."

"No!" the alchemist snapped tersely. "No. She doesn't want... she wouldn't come... I don't need her. I'll be fine."

"But sir..." Roy stammered.

Hawkeye-sensei brought his fist down on the desk with such force that his inkwells rattled. "Damn you, boy, where's my tea?" he shouted.

Roy retreated from the room.

_discidium_

The following day, Hawkeye-sensei did not leave his bed, instead sending Roy to fetch food, tea, and books as he required them. By the third day it was evident that the alchemist had indeed contracted his daughter's chickenpox: bright red blemishes covered his face and hands. The fever raged ever hotter, and Roy was beginning to grow afraid. The man was obviously ill, much sicklier than Riza had been even at her worst. He lay in bed like a poisoned dog, tossing fretfully and mumbling words of Latin that Roy could not quite recognize. He was tormented by the itchiness, and though Roy tried to keep him from scratching, his torso and arms were soon covered with bloodied places where he had torn the pocks open. At night he made strange weeping noises, and kept Roy running on strange errands. At times he was so hot that he demanded panfuls of snow to rub against his body. Other times, his frigid rigors shook the whole bed.

It was on the fifth night that the coughing began. It was a wet, hacking sound that was painful to hear. Sometimes Hawkeye-sensei would bring up a mouthful of slimy mucous, but mostly he just lay there, coughing fretfully and cursing under his breath.

By the seventh day, he was only worsening. Now he didn't even have the energy to shout at Roy, and the boy found his teacher's silence more disconcerting than his raging. After trying and failing to make the man take a little broth at noon, Roy descended to the kitchen and stood in thought for a long time. At last he came to his decision.

When Riza came home from school, he went upstairs to check on the alchemist. Hawkeye-sensei was lying on the bed, drenched in sweat and moaning softly to himself. The blemishes, many now torn open and infected, stood out against his ashen skin in lurid hues of red, purple and green. Roy left the room as quietly as he could, drawing the door closed behind him.

He descended to the kitchen and began to don his coat and other winter gear.

"I'm going to get Doctor Bella," he said calmly, trying to be strong and self-assured for Riza's sake.

"But Papa doesn't want to see her," the little girl said; "and she doesn't want to see Papa."

"He's sick," said Roy. "She'll come to help him if he's sick." He pulled on his woollen cap. "Now, I want you to stay down here. Even if he yells, even if he calls you, _stay down here_. Do you understand?"

"What if he needs me?" Riza asked.

"He doesn't need you," Roy said. It came out a little more harshly than he meant it to, but he could not back down: he didn't know whether Hawkeye-sensei might hurt Riza in his present state. "He needs the doctor. You stay down here, no matter what, do you hear me?"

"Yes," Riza breathed. She looked frightened.

"I'll be right back," Roy promised. "Just stay down here."

He tried to smile reassuringly, then pulled on his mittens and trudged out into the snow.

_discidium_

Sarah Lauren offered to visit the patient on her own, and this time Bella did not decline. From Roy's calm description – so different from the panicked supplication he had made regarding Riza – it was obvious that the man had chickenpox. The cough most likely meant that the illness had spread to his lungs, in which case there was still nothing to be done but wait it out. Sarah went to confirm the diagnosis, ensure that everything was well in hand, and to leave a bottle of paregoric with which to ease the cough.

"Just try to keep him comfortable," she told Roy following the examination. "There's really nothing else we can do. He's going to have a miserable time of it, but eventually he'll get better."

"Riza wasn't _that_ sick," Roy said softly, glancing over his shoulder towards the stairs. He was trying very hard to sound capable and grown up, even though he was absolutely terrified at the prospect of being left in charge of the house.

"No, it's usually easier on young ones," said Sarah. "Don't worry, he'll be fine. All he needs is a little good nursing, and a lot of sleep."

She didn't sound like an adult talking to a child: it was the voice of a physician giving instructions to a patient's caregiver. Roy realized abruptly that she was treating him like an adult. He was both gratified and unspeakably anxious. He was only twelve years old... no, no, he was a big, twelve-year-old boy. He could do this. He'd taken care of Riza, hadn't he? He didn't want this bright, pretty young lady to think that he was just a kid.

He squared his shoulders, trying to make his small body look as tall and strong as he could. "I'll take care of it," he said, sounding much more confident than he felt.

Sarah smiled in mild amusement, and Roy was at once nervous that she could see through his charade, and half-hoping that she would do just that.

"I know you will," she said, bolstering his ego and shattering his one chance of rescue from the ugly situation. "I'll stop by in a couple of days, all right?"

Roy felt his bravado ebbing away. Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded. Then he showed Sarah politely to the door, locking it behind her. Alone in the empty corridor, he leaned against the wall, burying his face in his hands. How was he supposed to take care of a sick man, help Riza with her schoolwork, keep food on the table and the house in some semblance of order, _and_ keep working on his own studies? He was just one person, and he couldn't do everything!

Tears of frustration, anxiety and exhaustion prickled in the corners of his eyes. A small voice forced him out of his moment of weakness.

"Roy?" Riza asked, coming from the kitchen. "W-will Papa die?"

Roy dragged on his mask of composure and raised his head, smiling reassuringly for the little girl's benefit. "No, he's going to be fine," he pledged. "It's only chickenpox."

For a moment, he was certain that Riza's piercing carmine eyes could see right through the smoke screen of confidence. Then either because she believed him or because she chose not to burden him with her own weakness, she nodded. "Then he should have a baking soda bath," she said knowingly.

_discidium_

Riza was asleep. Roy closed the door of her room with a tiny sigh of relief. On the other end of the corridor, Hawkeye-sensei was sleeping, too. He was bad-tempered, imperious, and anxious to get back to work, but he was doing much better. The cough lingered, but the fever was gone and according to Sarah Lauren he would be strong enough to get out of bed in a few days' time. Roy had almost burst into tears of gratitude when she told him that. He was so weary of running upstairs and down, fetching and carrying and obeying the alchemist's absurd and impatient commands.

For now, at least, they were both asleep. Roy stood in the corridor, staring blankly into the gloom and considering his next move. He had been up half of last night, bringing water and books to the bedridden alchemist, and today had been no better. There were dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The clothes hamper was overflowing with soiled linen. He hadn't dusted the parlour in three weeks, and the study was in chaos, and the woodbox was almost empty. But he had banked the fires for the night, and the doors were locked. If he wanted to – if he _dared_ – he could leave the other chores 'til morning.

His limbs were shaking a little with enervation as he moved towards the room that he still could not help thinking of as Davell's, though he had been its sole occupant for years, now. He peeled off his socks and took off his belt, but couldn't manage anything more. The bed was just too inviting. He rolled into the unmade nest of blankets and unwashed sheets, cocooning himself in the tangled bedclothes as best he could. He had forgotten his hot brick downstairs, but he couldn't bear the thought of getting up to fetch it. So he huddled as close as he could to the warm wall adjacent to the study chimney, and slipped into a stupor of exhaustion.

_discidium_

Riza was yanked away from a pleasant dream about glossy sable horses by an angry voice.

"What are you doing in bed at this hour? Get up, you lazy good-for-nothing!"

Riza gasped, her eyes flying open. She expected to see her father's grim scowl above her... but no one was there.

"Get up!" Papa repeated, and Riza realized that the noise was coming through the wall: Papa was in Roy's room. "What have you been up to while I've been ill, you little brat? Have you seen the state of this house?"

"S-sensei, I..." Roy mumbled blearily.

Riza flinched as she heard the sharp sound of flesh on flesh. She shivered a little, pulling her covers up to her chin as if they could protect her from her father's wrath.

"I said get out of bed, you worthless layabout! I'm well again, and I'm going to see to it that you earn your keep! No more life of leisure for you, young man. I told you, if you want to learn my secrets, you have to work for them! Isn't that what I said?"

"Yes, sensei," Roy stammered. "Eq-quivalent exchange, sensei. But I-I..."

This time the slap was followed by the dull _thud_ of something hitting the wall. Riza jumped a little, rolling to the opposite edge of her narrow bed.

"Up!" Papa snapped. Then his tirade dissolved into a thick, wet fit of coughing that lasted for the better part of a minute. When he spoke again, his voice sounded hoarse and wheezy. "I expect this house to be clean and my clothes washed by noon," he ordered. "If you aren't done, you won't eat. Understood?"

Roy tried to force out a reply, but before he could, the door to Riza's room flew open, bouncing off the wall with a _bang!_

"And you!" Papa said. "Hurry up: I want you to fix me a pot of tea and something to eat before you leave for school. Don't you know I've been ill?"

Then he was gone. Riza sat there, petrified with shock at the unexpected attack, for almost two minutes. Then she got up, dressing as quickly as she could. In the corridor she passed Roy, who was struggling to balance a heap of dirty underthings on top of the overfilled hamper. He forced a wavering smile.

"Morning, Riza," he said, almost but not quite cheerfully.

She didn't dare to linger long enough to answer him, but she nodded quickly before hurrying downstairs.

_discidium_

Mordred's pen moved so quickly that he scarcely had time to refill the barrel with ink. A delicate arc here, a smooth line there. _Flammis acribus addictis_...

At last it was finished. He sat back to admire his work.

It was like no array ever seen before. At its centre was his transmutation circle, crowned with flames and supported by the slithering form of a salamander. The fire's heart, like an all-seeing eye, stared out at him from the page.

Below the circle was a chalice, caressing and upholding the symbol of his power. Woven in and out between the cup and the circle, in the base of the goblet, around the edges, were words... and not just any words. It was the Latin requiem, _Dies Irae_, fragmented and altered as the code required. There were three layers of encryption. The first, and most obvious, was the placement of the words in relation to one another and to the array. The second involved the choice of words: comparing the original thirteenth-century text to the eighteenth-century version that Mordred had heard on the night Lian had died. Without copies of both texts, the code could never be broken.

The third circle, most brilliant of all, involved the music. The clues that might lead an alchemist to the scores of the _Requiem in D-Minor_ that had stirred Mordred to such ecstasy were subtle. They were well hidden within the second circle. Even then, how many alchemists possessed enough knowledge of music to unravel the last of Mordred's cipher?

Yes, it was perfect. The array, plain as day, and around it, encoded into a language indecipherable to the average mortal, the instructions for its use. His time in bed had been well spent. Resting and thinking while the children made sloths of themselves, Mordred had at last perfected the code with which he had been struggling for years. It was complete, and he had before him the prototype, laid out on a broad piece of canvas-backed paper.

It was a thing of beauty.

Now it only remained to make the final copy, and to this, too, Mordred had given a great deal of thought during the more coherent moments of his illness. Paper was out of the question: it could be too easily destroyed. The thought of losing his life's work to a chance flood or a stray spark filled his heart with dread. Next he had thought stone, but stone was too easily found. In the wrong hands, his research could bring ruin and damnation. He had to protect it. What it needed was a guardian, someone sworn to safeguard it and charged to bear it always.

It was the natural decision, and he was dimly shocked that it had never before occurred to him. Of course, it would not be easy. To achieve it, he would have to spend a great deal of time learning another new skill – and one that he was unlikely to pick up from books alone. He had to perfect the techniques needed, in order to ensure that his work was transcribed with the greatest accuracy and preserved from the ravages of time.

That was all right. He had time. He needed to wait, anyhow, until his canvas was prepared. At the moment it was still too small...

The front door opened. His daughter, coming home from school.

"Riza!" Mordred called out.

The little girl's face appeared in the doorway, at once nervous and hopeful. "Yes, Papa?" she said softly.

"Come in," the alchemist said. "How was school?"

"F-fine, Papa," Riza said. "Mr. Regnier says I am a very clever girl."

"What do rural schoolmarms know?" Mordred said absently, not seeing the hurt in the child's eyes. "Turn around, Riza.

She obeyed after a moment's puzzled hesitation, clutching her slate and books to her stomach. Mordred frowned. In that position, her coat was pulled taught over her shoulder blades, highlighting the very deficiency that he had expected to see.

"That's enough," he said. "Go and do your homework. And Roy is cleaning in the parlour. Tell him he may have a slice of bread and a little milk if he likes, but I expect him to be finished cleaning by dark."

"Y-yes, Papa," Riza said softly. She hurried from the room as quietly as she could. Mordred frowned critically at her retreating form.

Yes, he had plenty of time to study the necessary techniques. His canvas was still too small.


	56. Political Education

**Chapter 56: Political Education**

It was in the spring of the year when Riza Hawkeye turned eight that Wesley McFarland, sixty-second Fuhrer President of Amestris, died unexpectedly in his sleep. It was a great shock to the nation. The Fuhrer, though sixty-seven years of age, had been a hale and hearty man. The day of his death had been utterly un-extraordinary: he had made an address to the parliament in the morning, visited the National Academy in the afternoon, and dined at the home of his trusted confidant and loyal second-in-command in the evening. Yet he had, apparently, suffered a massive stroke sometime around midnight, and passed quietly from life like any ordinary old man. He was only the fifth Fuhrer to claim that particular honour.

The Fuhrer's death did not cause mass hysteria, or rioting in the streets, or even a wavering in the price of commodities. There was the usual gossip, of course, and the men in the taverns speculated in whispers that a perfectly healthy man did _not_ suddenly suffer a stroke while sleeping, but such rumours were all in good fun. No one really believed there had been any foul play; after all, though healthy McFarland _had_ been old, and there had already been talk of him retiring within the next few years.

In any case, there was General Bradley waiting in the wings, ready to step into the void left by his commander-in-chief and lead the nation into its glorious future. Every Fuhrer had a successor _ad hoc_ who would, in the event of his unexpected demise, assume temporary leadership of the government until the generals and lieutenant generals could meet to elect the new Fuhrer. Ordinarily this office was held by the Fuhrer's right-hand man, his most trusted advisor and often, his best friend. It was not infrequent, either, for this man to be the one ultimately chosen by the conclave as the permanent ruler of Amestris.

The day of the Fuhrer's death was a day of national mourning. Schools were closed, shops shut their doors, and at the Academies in Central and the four provincial capitals, the cadets were dismissed from their ordinary exercises to lament the passing of their leader.

Papa heard the news from Roy, who had gone out that morning to fetch the mail and buy meat for the week. He returned with a printed broadsheet hastily done up from the official press releases sent out over the telegraph lines. Riza, who had gone to school expecting an ordinary day, came home around half past nine to find her father opening a bottle of brandy. He grinned at her as she entered.

"Come in, come in!" he said. "No school today?"

"N-no, Papa," Riza said timidly, afraid that he wouldn't believe her. To her surprise, he laughed.

"Nor will there be!" he said. "The old goat is dead!"

"The Fuhrer," Roy translated softly, keeping one wary eye on the alchemist. Neither child trusted Mordred Hawkeye when he was happy: his mercurial temperament could swing so swiftly from merriment to rage.

"Yes, the Fuhrer. He's dead and gone to hell where he belongs." Papa took down three glasses, filling one almost to the top, another halfway, and adding just enough brandy to cover the bottom of the third. He handed that glass to Riza, and the half-full cup to Roy. "To the ferryman. He brings his justice in the end."

Papa took a long swallow of the liquor. The two children held their glasses and watched him, perplexed. Papa frowned. "Go on, drink up. McFarland's dead: it's a cause for celebration!"

"B-but sir," Roy said hesitantly. "Isn't it sad that the Fuhrer is dead? Who will lead us now?"

Papa scowled. "You're a wet blanket," he growled, taking another swig of the brandy. "Some general will take his place, all right, and the cycle will continue." He sat down. "It isn't going to stop, either, unless someday someone starts a revolution and gives the power to the people."

Riza cocked her head to one side. "But Papa, the people are represented in parliament," she said. "Men vote for their members, and parliament passes all of the laws. The military can't do anything unless parliament agrees."

Piercing eyes riveted upon her. "Where did you hear that?" he demanded.

"At school," Riza said softly.

Papa snorted. "Of course. It was a damned mistake to send you. Listen, girl, that's the letter of the law, but parliament has no real power. Sure, the people elect them, but they don't do anything. They _have _to ratify the laws that the Fuhrer proposes: they haven't got a choice. Any party that tried to step out of line would be disbanded."

"Then why do we have a parliament at all?" Roy asked.

"It makes people happy to have a parliament," answered the alchemist bleakly. "They feel that their opinions are being heard and respected. It placates the masses, but parliament is just a puppet, and the Fuhrer pulls the strings. Never in all my years have I heard of them turning down a bill that came from McFarland's office – or Hanley's before him. It simply isn't done."

He rocked his glass so that the brandy swirled within it. "Someday," he said quietly. "Someday this corrupt system will be torn down. Then we can have a true democracy instead of this rotten, self-serving oligarchic beast."

"What's a democracy?" Riza asked. She wasn't even sure if she could repeat the other word. Papa looked pointedly at Roy.

"The Greeks," Roy said. "They had a democracy. Each man counted as one man, equal to all the others. No one was more important than anyone else, and every decision was made by a vote."

"Each man equal to all the others," Papa agreed sombrely. "No one voice louder than anyone else's. No Fuhrer: just a parliament accountable to the people."

"But we have to have a Fuhrer," Roy said, frowning. "Otherwise people would just argue, and nothing would get done. I would say 'red', and you would say 'blue', and in the end we'd get purple, and no one would be happy."

"Maybe," Papa conceded; "but at least the whole country wouldn't exist to feed the ambitions and vices of one man."

"What if the Fuhrer wasn't ambitious?" Roy asked. "What if he really wanted the best for the people, and served the people? What if all he cared about was taking care of us? Wouldn't _that_ be better than a parliament?"

The adult stared at him for a moment, then drained what was left in his glass. "You're a sickening idealist, Roy Mustang. You show me one person who puts himself last, after everyone else, and I'll show you a man who can be your perfect Fuhrer. Until then, I'll grit my teeth and bide my time and hope for the coming of the republic."

He grinned morosely and got to his feet, carrying the brandy bottle back to the sideboard in the parlour. The two children looked at one another.

"Is the Fuhrer evil?" Riza asked, a little frightened. Mr. Regnier spoke as if the Fuhrer was a great man. Papa's words confused and scared her.

"No," Roy said. "No, he can't be, or the generals wouldn't have chosen him to lead them... would they?"

Riza looked down at the glass in her hand. It smelled awful, and stung her nose. "I don't want it," she said. "It's icky."

Roy eyed his own vessel. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed at it curiously. Then he took a cautious sip. His lips pursed into a puckered "O", and his nose wrinkled. Then his face relaxed. "It's not so bad," he said. He took another swallow. "It's sweet."

Curiosity won out over instinct, and Riza took a tiny taste of the liquor. She immediately scrunched up her face. "Ugh!" she said. "It's _yucky!_"

She moved to the sink and poured out the contents of her glass, then opened the icebox and filled it with milk instead. When she returned, Roy was still nursing his drink. It was already half gone.

"I think it's nice," he told her. Then he hiccoughed loudly. Riza giggled a little and took a drink of milk. Roy knocked back another long draught of the brandy and grinned.

"I wonder if the new Fuhrer will make any new laws," he said.

_discidium_

Four days later, the announcement came down from Military Headquarters. The conclave of generals had decided upon the next Fuhrer of Amestris. It was to be King Bradley, McFarland's young protégé and the much-decorated hero of the great Western Campaign. The choice was a popular one with the troops, for Bradley was a strong and charismatic general, and a popular officer. The common people had their misgivings, chiefly because of his youth, for he was only forty-one, but also because of his handicap.

The Fuhrer-elect had only one good eye. The other had been destroyed by a piece of shrapnel in a training exercise during his field clerkship in his final year of the academy. At least, that was the official story. No one close to General Bradley had ever either confirmed or denied it. There were rumours that it was a wound sustained during some mission into enemy territory that was so fundamental to national security that even now, years later, it could not be mentioned.

However the eye had been lost, the black patch that he wore over the purportedly vacant left socket gave him a curiously gnarled appearance despite his age and chiselled good looks. The official photograph reproduced in newspapers across the country introduced the populace to this weathered, battle-hardened man with a shock of black hair, a neat moustache and a silky half-smile. Biographies prepared by the propaganda offices told of his illustrious career at the National Academy, his triumphs in the field and rapid rise through the ranks, the esteem in which he was held by both officers and enlisted men, and an account of his family. His patrician, statuesque wife was of solid Amestrian stock, with blue eyes and fair hair. They had no children, but she was younger than her husband and might yet bear him a son. She would make a fine First Lady: one to whom the wives and mothers of the nation might look as a model.

Critics of the incoming regime pointed out that Bradley had much experience in war, but little in diplomacy. With relations between Amestris and her neighbours already strained, there was no telling what disastrous results might befall the country if an inexperienced leader blundered into a volatile situation. Then there were the ethnic minorities, who had good cause to be concerned, for King Bradley was a man of rigid expectations, and as a commander he had never been especially tolerant of subordinates of mixed or alien race. Especially in the East, at best a melting-pot of poor Amestrians, offbeat religious groups and nomadic peoples, the question of Bradley's appointment was a labile one.

The little school in Hamner wasn't immune to these debates. In the days between the concluding of the conclave and the official instatement of the new Fuhrer, there was more than enough arguing in the schoolyard. Once or twice, it even came to blows, but the incident that remained imprinted on Riza's mind for years afterwards occurred on the day of the inauguration itself.

She had come early to school, for Papa was in a foul mood and Roy had been anxious to get Riza safely out of the house. He was awful good to look after her like that. Somehow, Papa wasn't quite so scary when Riza knew that Roy was there watching out for her. She knew he sometimes took punishments that should have been hers, or dealt with the angry alchemist so that she wouldn't have to. He was always there to help if she were set some task beyond her scope, and he always tried to deflect her father's temper towards himself.

Arriving forty minutes before the morning bell, however, was not really a good thing. No one went into the schoolhouse before Mr. Regnier rang the bell: it simply wasn't done. That meant that Riza had to wait in the schoolyard with the other pupils, largely unsupervised.

"Hey, there, Riza Redeyes!" one of the boys taunted. "Your father made any monsters recently?"

"Crazy Hawkeye, making monsters!" one of his toadies sneered mockingly.

Riza said nothing. Mr. Regnier had told her to do that. Just be quiet, and then they get bored and go away. Don't argue with them, don't shout at them, and above all, don't cry... no matter what they said. So Riza steeled herself. No matter what they said, even if they talked about Momma and how she was dead, even if they called her crazy and said Papa was a crackpot and Roy was a slope-eyed beggar's brat from Xing and Riza was a mongrel and a half-breed and unnatural and mad, she couldn't react. She couldn't get angry. She couldn't cry.

"_Alchemists are crazy folk! They eat eggshells and leave the yolk! They drink coal oil until they choke! They mend things that ain't even broke!_" chanted a clutch of girls from the Third Reader. They thought they were mighty clever, Riza told herself scornfully, but their lousy rhyme was no good: it didn't scan. There were seven syllables in the first line, but there were eight in each of the other three. That's why it sounded so stupid. Also, "ain't" wasn't a real word.

Stupid Fran who couldn't spell very good at all came sidling up. She curled her lip into a nasty sneer.

"When are you leaving?" she asked, circling Riza like a kite zeroing in on offal.

"I'm not going anywhere," Riza said, so puzzled by this unexpected question that she momentarily forgot that she had to stay quiet when they were needling her like this.

"You're not?" cackled Fran. "Oh, I would if I were you!" She looked around at the audience, grinning maliciously. "Everybody knows the new Fuhrer isn't going to tolerate the Isbalan dogs anymore. We're going to crush them, and when we do, we'll get all the lousy half-breeds, too!"

"Will not!" Alayne cried, running up with Norma at her heels. "Ishbal's part of Amestris now! And Riza's just as Amestrian as any of us! She's got yellow hair and everything!"

"Yeah, but she's got red eyes, and everybody knows that only Isbalans have red eyes!" Fran countered. She shoved Riza's shoulder so that the littler girl stumbled back a pace.

The schoolhouse door popped open, and out came Mr. Regnier. The crowd around Riza dispersed immediately under his firm, watchful eye. The students mocked the one-armed teacher, but they also respected him. Almost everyone liked him... and a select few were a little afraid of him. In any case, even an inkling of disapproval from him was enough to derail an impending scuffle.

The teacher said nothing, but merely stood there for a full two minutes, and then retreated into the building. The brief appearance was enough to quell most of the students' thirst for conflict, but Fran, of course, hung back.

"Ishbalans are crazy religious nuts!" she said. "They won't obey our laws, and they don't like our military. Someday we'll kill them all, and Riza Redeyes, too!"

"You will not!" Alayne said. "You couldn't kill a spider, you're so squeamish. And anyhow, Riza's Amestrian! Her family's always lived here: she's Amestrian!"

"Her mother was from Ishbal, though, wasn't she?" Fran pointed out nastily. "She was a crazy Ishbalan! Riza's going to be crazy, too, if the military doesn't kill her!"

"They can't kill Riza!" Norma said, her eyes brimming with tears. "Alayne, you can't let 'em kill Riza! I love Riza!"

"Nobody's going to kill Riza!" Alayne said firmly. "That's stupid talk."

"The new Fuhrer..."

"The new Fuhrer's going to make peace!" Alayne snapped. "My father said so, and he's the smartest man there is. He's going to make peace because he's young and he has to think about the kind of a country he wants his kids to grow up in. So there!"

It seemed as if Fran were momentarily stricken dumb. Then she tossed her head. "_Your _father?" she said scornfully. "If he's so smart, why are you all dirt poor, huh? Why can't he even feed his family decently?"

Alayne's eyes went wide and a bright blush spread across her cheekbones. She cast her eyes down towards the hem of her cheap, shabby dress.

"Fran," Riza said quietly, stepping into the void left by Alayne's embarrassment. "I think you need better manners. You're not a very nice girl."

It was a miracle: Fran's jaw went slack and she stared mutely at Riza. There was no retort, no pithy comeback, not even a cheap insult. The older girl simply sniffed and flounced away towards a knot of her peers. Riza watched her go, confused and gratified. She didn't know how, but she had won!

_discidium_

When the students filed into the classroom, they were obliged to stop and stare. There was something strange at the front of the room.

It was a box, about three feet high. The top was rounded into a sort of an arch, and the sides were smooth and rectangular. There was a design in dark wood on the front, with panels cut away to reveal thin metal grates. Above these grates were four knobs that looked like they could be turned.

"Please find your seats," Mr. Regnier said, pacing the front of the room with his empty sleeve swinging at his side. "Everyone please find your seats. You can stare at my new toy later."

The students obeyed, but not without curious whispering. When at last they were seated, the teacher leaned against his desk.

"Now, today is a very special day," he said. "Can anyone tell me why?"

Susan raised her hand. "The new Fuhrer is being instated today," she said.

"Precisely," said the teacher. "This is one of the most important events to occur in many, many years. Fuhrer McFarland, may he rest in peace, was a great leader. He has left us a legacy that General Bradley will need to strive very hard to be worthy of. Today, he embarks on the journey to achieve that. I brought this—" He pointed at the strange box. "—so that we can all listen to the new Fuhrer's address at the invocation ceremony."

Then he went on to explain that the box was a radio. He told them how it picked up signals from the air, so that they could hear things that were being said far, far away. In Central, the new Fuhrer would speak into a microphone. That sound would be sent through the air, from tower to tower until it reached Hamner. The box was able to pick the sound out of the air, and turn it into voices that they could hear and understand. In a few minutes, when he turned this marvellous new invention on, they would all be able to hear the Fuhrer talking in distant Central.

When the time came, Mr. Regnier turned on the machine. There was a whine of a battery and a whiff of ozone, and then a great deal of crackling and screeching as the teacher fiddled with the dials. At last, the static cleared and a thin, tinny voice came through the speakers into the classroom.

"—_the Western Campaign. Amestris, I give you your Fuhrer."_

There was a noise of applause, and a band was playing the Federal March. Then silence fell. At last, a new voice came across the miles, translated by the wondrous new invention. The children, who had never seen anything quite so marvellous as this talking box, listened rapturously.

"_Fellow officers, loyal soldiers of the nation, men and women of Amestris, today is a great day," _a man said. _"Today is a great day, for it is the first day of our land's illustrious future."_

There was a long pause.

"_When Wesley McFarland died, I confess that I wept. Not only for my friend and my beloved commander – though he was both of those – but for the great man, the valiant leader, who had perished; and most of all for the nation that he left behind. Amestris was not ready to lose her Fuhrer, and I must mourn that loss as I know that all of you mourn it._

"_But then I saw the bright future awaiting Amestris. A future free from fear, free from the tyranny of our warlike neighbours. A future in which all the people of the nation may live in safety and in harmony. Safety for the people... this is my priority._

"_Amestris is a strong and wealthy nation. Our alchemists and scientists have ensured that we are the most industrialized and powerful country on earth. Other nations envy us. They hate us for our strength and for our riches. They seek to strip us of both. We cannot let this happen. It is the duty of the military to protect the people. I intend to see that the soldiers under __my command execute that duty with courage, finesse and efficiency._

"_Do not be afraid, Amestris. Your nation will protect you. Your military will protect you. Your Fuhrer will protect you. _I_ will protect you."_

The speech went on and on, as the Fuhrer detailed changes to national policy that Riza did not understand, and spoke of increasing enrolment to the Academies, and pouring new funds into research and industry. The little girl didn't really listen. She was thinking about the military, the blue-coated soldiers who protected the people, who were strong and brave and loyal. And somewhere in a forgotten recess of her mind, she thought of her grandfather, whose name she did not know and whose face she could scarcely remember. _He_ had been in the military. She remembered his kind smile and his gentle, shielding arms, and somehow this image became linked to the idea of the soldiers who guarded the nation.

She knew that her papa didn't like the military... but at this moment she was very glad to know that they were out there, protecting her from the enemies who wanted to hurt her and to kill her.


	57. Riza's Teacher

**Chapter 57: Riza's Teacher**

Supper at Doctor Bella's was the highlight of Roy's week. Every Friday afternoon, he and Riza would wash their faces and comb their hair, put on fresh undergarments and their nicest clothes, and walk into the village together. The physician always had a delicious meal for them, much better than anything Roy or Hawkeye-sensei could manage. Even better than the food, though, was the company, for Doctor Bella was cheerful and nurturing and affirming and never cross... and there was her student, too.

Roy quite liked Sarah. She was pretty and funny, and she treated him like an equal, when even Doctor Bella looked on him as a child. After supper, when the physician cuddled Riza in her lap, reading to her from the novel they were enjoying together, Roy and Sarah would spend time together. They would talk about science and chemistry, or about Sarah's studies in East City, or her plans to set up a joint practice with her future husband. She was a lovely person, and her sunny disposition was contagious. As the weeks passed Roy found himself subscribing more and more to her optimistic vision of the future as a marvellous thing, overflowing with potential.

Of course, there were moments when it just wasn't possible to feel that way, and this was one of them. Roy was standing in the high street just beyond the market square, Riza's soft hand in his. They were both staring up at the darkened windows of the locked and empty surgery.

The boy at the livery stable had said that Doctor Bella was out: somebody was dying on a remote farm. In the moment of emergency, the physician had obviously forgot to leave word at the Hawkeye house that she would be unable to accommodate her two young guests tonight.

Ordinarily, it would not have been a problem. Roy would simply have taken Riza back to the house and fixed her a nice sandwich or something – not the good hot meal of meat and vegetables and gravy with dainties for dessert that they would've had at the doctor's, but satisfying enough. Today, however, Hawkeye-sensei's persistent cough had been worse than usual, and this combined with some new difficulty he was having with his research had conspired to send him into a murderous mood. He had spent the whole day yelling at Roy and slapping him around. When Riza had come home from school, she had made some small, benign comment that had sent her father over the edge: he had hurled a heavy book at her. Roy had managed to transpose himself between the girl and the projectile, and he had a gloriously swollen black eye for his trouble. Shortly after that the alchemist had ordered the children from the house, railing that "that damned interfering spinster" could have them if she wanted them. Though neither Roy nor Riza would admit it, even to one another, they were both afraid to go back home.

"I'm hungry," Riza whispered, staring shamefacedly down at her feet.

Roy felt sick. He was supposed to take care of Riza. Now she was stranded outdoors with nowhere to go and nothing to eat.

"Don't worry," he said with more bravado than he felt. "I'll figure something out."

Riza looked up at him, adoring admiration in her crimson eyes. "Okay," she said softly.

Her fond faith made him feel worse. Roy didn't like standing here, exposed in the street. It made him feel oddly vulnerable. Old instincts were reasserting themselves from some dark, half-forgotten corner of his mind. He remembered lonely times and empty streets and the terrible, desolate knowledge that there was nowhere in the world that you could be safe... and it frightened him.

He wanted to find some dark place to hide, but that was out of the question. For Riza's sake, he had to pretend that he was in command of the situation. So he started walking instead.

Down one of the side streets, Roy almost collided with a man in a long black duster, because he was too lost in his grim thoughts to watch where he was going.

The man danced nimbly aside, chuckling a little. "Easy, there, son. What's your hurry?"

Roy was about to mumble out an apology, when Riza smiled unexpectedly. "Mr. Regnier!" she said happily.

The man lifted his left hand – Roy remembered abruptly that Riza's teacher didn't have a right arm – and tipped his hat. "Riza," he acknowledged. "What are you doing out at this hour?"

Riza twisted a little on one foot, tightening her grip on Roy's hand. "We're s'posed to eat supper with Doctor Bella, but she isn't home," she said.

The man looked at Roy, squinting against the gathering gloom. "You're... Mr. Hawkeye's student," he said. Roy nodded uncomfortably: the man's gaze was now focused on his luridly discoloured eye socket, and Roy had the feeling that Regnier knew or guessed the nature of their dilemma. It was a frightening and humiliating thought.

Mr. Regnier smiled, tearing his eyes away from Roy. "Well, I'm sure I don't cook as well as Doctor Greyson, but if you two would like to chance it you're more than welcome to come home with me. I don't know about you, but I'm famished."

Roy's instinct was to decline, but Riza, it seemed, trusted Mr. Regnier. She loosed her hold on her companion's hand and nodded.

"Thank you," she said politely. "That would be very nice."

The teacher smiled. "I'm glad, but what did you and I decide last week? You're such a bright girl; you can think of a more descriptive adjective than 'nice', can't you?"

For a moment, Roy bristled with indignation. The man was going to make Riza beg for her supper? He'd sooner steal for her than let her debase herself, sooner be caught and whipped and sent to the state orphanage... but then he noticed how Riza's face had taken on a pensive look, as if she was faced with a puzzle. It wasn't a bid for praise: it was part of an ongoing lesson in vocabulary.

"Enjoyable," Riza said presently, as she sorted out the connotations she had poured into "nice". "Pleasant. Generous."

"Enjoyable and pleasant I hope," her teacher said. "Generous, no. I have an ulterior motive: I'm quite lonesome tonight, and you'll both be doing me a great favour by lending me your company."

Riza's small smile broadened ever so slightly, and she stepped away from Roy entirely, slipping her hand into her teacher's.

Roy followed them down the street to the building that housed the local notary's office. Mr. Regnier ascended the stairs that ran up the side of the shop, and unlocked the door that led in to the second level. The children followed him, and he groped for a box of matches. He struck one on the sole of his shoe, and lit a candle. The small room was bathed in a gentle orange light.

It was ten feet square and rather cramped. There was a sink against the wall near the door, and a small wooden table with two rickety chairs near it. A narrow bed was pushed against the far wall, next to the little cast-iron heater that also served as a stove. There was a strange box-like piece of furniture at the foot of the bed that Roy assumed must be the radio of which Riza has spoken so enthusiastically. Shelves made of boards held by stacks of bricks occupied the remaining space along the wall: they were piled with battered copies of the standard schoolbooks, interspersed with curious trinkets and a couple of framed photographs. A ragged curtain partitioned the back corner from the rest of the room.

"You live _here_?" Riza asked, looking around the tiny space.

"Yes, I'm lucky," Regnier said happily. He opened a little cupboard over the sink, and took down a tin can, a loaf of bread and a little basket of fresh vegetables. "Young lady teachers are expected to do the respectable thing and board with a local family. The social norms allow _me_ to set up my own place." He looked at Roy. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"He's Roy," Riza said, surprisingly eager to answer. Roy hadn't seen her so gregarious in a long, long while. "Why do you sleep in the kitchen?"

"There's only one room," the teacher said. "I walked by your house the other day, I think. The big one on the edge of town?"

Riza nodded. "My room is the one over the front door," she said.

"Hmm. Your papa doesn't much care for trimming his lawn, does he?"

The tone was jovial, but Roy felt a twist of embarrassment in his stomach. Taking care of the yard was _his_ job, but it was easy to forget it in the daily struggle to keep up with his studies and the housework.

"Papa's very busy," Riza said softly. Then she added, with a stout loyalty that warmed the boy's heart; "Roy's very busy, too."

The teacher was trying to work the can opener one-handed, and not succeeding. Roy stepped forward, took the tool without asking for permission, and proceeded to punch holes around the rim.

"Thank you," Regnier said. "I confess I'm not used to doing things without my spare arm. Riza, would you like to help me scrape some carrots?"

Between the three of them, they managed to get a decent meal onto the table: there were baked beans in molasses, vegetables cooked in oil and sprinkled with savoury spices, and good, fresh bread. Because there were only two chairs, Roy and the teacher moved the table next to the bed. The man sat on the mattress and the children used the chairs.

When they had eaten, Riza got up to start washing the dishes, but the teacher shook his head. "You're my guests," he said. "Leave them be."

It was obvious that Riza was surprised. At Doctor Bella's house, she never had to wash the dishes – but Mr. Regnier was a man, and Roy could tell that the girl had expected him to behave the way that Hawkeye-sensei did.

The teacher went to the makeshift shelves, and found a book, which he handed to Riza. "I know you love to read," he said; "and I've been meaning to let you borrow this. It's a collection of stories about important people in history. Some of the words might be a little hard for you, but I think you're up to the challenge."

She was, Roy thought enviously. Riza was a great reader. She never stumbled over words, and she seemed to devour books. He couldn't help being a little jealous, for he still struggled with written language, and throwing Greek and Latin into the mix really didn't help.

Regnier piled the soiled dishes into the sink, and then motioned that Roy should help him move the table back across the room. Riza, eager to dive into the new book, climbed onto the bed and sat with her legs crossed, her sharp eyes not even squinting in the candlelight. Nevertheless, the teacher lit another candle and set it on top of the radio so that the girl had ample light.

"So you're studying alchemy," he said to Roy, sitting down and stretching his lean legs out before him. "What do you plan to do with your art?"

"Sensei says alchemy should be used for the good of all," Roy said softly.

The teacher nodded sagely. "That's a tall order. You'll have to think very hard about how you want to achieve that goal." He raised his lone hand and flexed the fingers thoughtfully. "Alchemy is a powerful tool. You will need to be careful to use it for good."

"That's what sensei says," Roy agreed. The alchemist had been very clear on that point. His flame techniques – of which Roy had seen only the very mundane – were so powerful that they could be turned to great evil if misused. That was why he had to keep them secret, and that was why Roy would not be allowed to learn them until sensei was satisfied that he was ready.

"I wonder," the man mused; "what does your teacher do with his alchemy? How does he use it for the good of the people?"

Roy had no answer to this, and that surprised him. He stared at Riza's teacher, alarmed and a little hurt. There was no use in waxing indignant, for he realized that the man was right. Hawkeye-sensei did not _use _his alchemy, except for simple household tasks. Roy had never seen it make a marked difference to anyone's life.

"You see the dilemma," Regnier said. "It is easy to say that alchemy must be used for good. Certainly it must not be used for evil, but letting your talents lie dormant, hiding your gifts... that is a sin, too. You are learning things that can be used to make the world a better place, and in a few years you will have to decide if that is what you are going to do."

"But how can I do that?" Roy asked anxiously. When put that way, it almost made it sound like his studies were useless! He had no idea how to put Hawkeye-sensei's ideal into practice!

"That is something you'll need to decide, too," Regnier said. He crossed his ankles and reached up to scratch at his empty shoulder socket. "Do you know what other alchemists do with their talents?"

"Some work in factories," Roy said. "Or on the railroads. There are alchemists at the universities. Lots are like sensei, living quiet lives, working on research, taking pupils."

"What about the State Alchemists?" Regnier asked, cocking his head to one side as a tiny, wry smile tugged at his lips.

Roy shook his head. "The military isn't needed," he said. "State Alchemists are nothing but human weapons."

"I see. Roy, let me show you something." The man got to his feet and crossed to the shelves. He took one of the picture frames and handed it to the boy.

From behind the glass, Regnier stared back at him. He was younger in the photograph, and he was whole, but it was unmistakably the same man. He wore a sombre, proud expression, and a crisp uniform that the photographer had airbrushed lightly with cobalt blue. Roy looked up at the schoolteacher, as if to convince himself that he and this young soldier were one in the same.

"_You_ were in the military?" he said.

Regnier nodded. "For ten years. That photograph was taken when I graduated from the Western Academy. By the time I was discharged, I was a captain."

"I-is that how you lost your arm?" Roy asked, more boldly than he would have thought possible.

The man nodded. "I lost it in combat on the western front," he said. "I was on the staff of a State Alchemist at the time; a man by the name of Ishmael Barklay. He specialized in water. He could do things that I never would have imagined possible, though maybe they wouldn't seem so remarkable to you. I know it may sound strange, but that 'living weapon', as you call him, saved more lives than the surgeon who amputated my arm. Major Barklay protected his soldiers, and he helped secure a large stretch of border. Do you know what that means?"

Roy shook his head. He wasn't well versed in military strategy: Hawkeye-sensei felt that it was a waste of time.

"It means that he kept the Cretoan army out of Amestris. The area our battalion was assigned to hold was farmland... not so very different from the country around here. The people there are just like the people in Hamner. There are schools and shops and families, homes and farms, post offices. If Creta had crossed the border, they would have burned down the buildings and trampled the crops and killed the people, or taken them captive. Major Barklay held them back. He protected those people. He used his alchemy to save them."

For a moment, Roy couldn't speak. He had never really thought of the neighbouring nations in that light before, and he hadn't realized that there was another side to the argument. Yes, State Alchemists killed. They used their art for violent purposes, as sensei said. But the people they were killing were those who were trying to invade the nation. They were trying to hurt innocent people, civilians just like Riza and Doctor Bella.

Then he looked at Mr. Regnier's empty sleeve, where his arm once had been.

"But why do people have to get hurt?" he asked. "Why did you have to lose your arm?"

The teacher seemed to consider the question for a moment. Then he regarded Roy gravely, looking him squarely in the eyes. "Your black eye," he said at last. "How did that happen?"

"It was an accident," Roy mumbled shamefacedly.

"Was it?"

There was no lying to this man. He seemed to see right through Roy's mask of composure and maturity, and into his nervous, uncertain soul.

"Yes," the boy whispered. "He didn't mean for it to hit me."

"For what to hit you?" Regnier prompted, dropping his voice lower so that Riza, who was still engrossed in the book, could not hear.

"The book," Roy confessed. "Hawkeye-sensei threw it, and I got in the way."

The schoolteacher frowned. "Did he throw it at Riza?" he asked.

Roy didn't answer, but Regnier didn't seem to need a response. After all, he worked with Riza every day at school. Surely he suspected what went on at home, powerless though he might be to do anything about it.

"You see?" the man said, sitting back a little. "Someone had to get hurt. The book had to hit someone. Either it would have hit Riza, or it would have hit you. You got hurt so that she wouldn't have to. Soldiers are wounded, and maimed, and even killed so that the rest of the people of Amestris can live safe, peaceful lives."

Roy understood. "Equivalent exchange," he said. He had been hurt today so that Riza could be safe. Soldiers died so that civilians could live. It made perfect sense.

"Exactly," said Regnier. "That's why I had to lose my arm and my commission. And now..." He smiled a little. "Now _I'm_ a civilian, and I get to enjoy that same protection that I gave."

"Isn't it hard, though? Having only one arm, I mean..."

The man shrugged – an oddly lopsided gesture, given his truncated shoulder. "It's a challenge," he admitted. "My handwriting is terrible now."

"Why don't you get automail?" Roy asked. "Doctor Bella's student is going to marry a man whose mother is an automail engineer. Sarah says it can really help people."

Mr. Regnier chuckled morosely. "It's heavy," he said. "It's clumsy, and above all it's expensive. The military would have fitted me out if I were still an officer, but you see, I was dishonourably discharged. No commendations, no pension, and no automail. So instead, I teach school and I write with my left hand." He grinned good-naturedly. "But that's a story for another evening. I ought to walk you two home, before Riza's father starts worrying."

Far from worrying, Hawkeye-sensei was immured obliviously in his study when the two children returned home. Roy locked up the house and stopped by Riza's door to wish her goodnight and remind her not to stay up too late with the borrowed book. Once settled in bed himself, he lay awake for a long time, mulling over the night's conversation. It was not until just before he at last slipped off into slumber that it occurred to him to wonder _why_ the schoolteacher – who had been Captain Regnier of Western – had been dishonourably discharged, if he had served in such a successful campaign.


	58. Swansong

**Chapter 58: Swansong**

The day came at last when there was a rattling of cartwheels and the soft nickering of dray horses, and the tinkers rolled into town.

Roy had been working in the garden, and Riza, of course, was at school. The boy dropped his hoe, and clamoured over the fence into the front yard.

The two caravans were there as always, and the wagon, but something was different. It took Roy a moment to realize that there was a new horse coupled with Pol at the smaller caravan, and Dot was walking sedately behind the wagon. On her broad, sturdy back sat Maes, erect as a prince in the saddle, the reigns slack in his hand.

Seeing Roy, he grinned enormously, patted the mare's neck and slid to the ground. Roy shrank back a little in astonishment.

His friend had always been tall and lanky, and his letters had mentioned that he was growing "like a weed", but it was still a shock. He towered over his friend: he had to be at least six feet tall! His face, too, had lost the last shreds of baby fat, emphasizing his long nose and the chiselled curve of his jaw, adorned with a thin black fuzz.

He was grown up, Roy thought despairingly. His friend had gone away a gangling teen, and come back a grown man. Suddenly his own undersized body felt more inadequate than ever. He was just a kid, and Maes... Maes was eighteen. He wasn't a kid anymore, and he wouldn't want anything to do with kids, either.

But then the tinker's son held out his fist expectantly. Roy hesitated for a moment before reaching out to bop it with his own.

"Good to see you!" Maes cried, throwing a companionable arm around the boy's shoulder. "I thought maybe you'd be inside, learning how to be a famous alchemist!"

"No," Roy said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "The garden."

"Ah! That was going to be my _second_ guess. Dad? Can I—"

"Go right ahead," Absalom called out from his place at the head of the convoy. "Be back home by dark."

"He'll come when he's hungry," Tiath said. "That skinflint alchemis—"

"Hush, Tia! That's the boy's sensei you're talking about," Gareth scolded. A good-natured argument broke out as the vehicles moved away, leaving Roy, Maes and the old mare alone in the road.

"You got a new horse," Roy said as Dot bowed her head to butt at his arm.

Maes clicked his tongue at her, taking the reins and stroking her nose. "Naughty girl: no begging," he scolded lovingly. "Yeah, her name's Nancy. We're hoping she and Quoit'll breed next year. Dot's getting too old to have to pull those heavy carts anyway, aren't you, Dot?"

He dug in his pocket and brought out a fistful of oats. Roy wrinkled his nose a little. Carrying food, even horse food, in one's pocket seemed so... unsanitary. Still, he watched enviously as the horse lapped up the oats and whinnied quietly, rubbing her silky jaw against Maes' shoulder.

"Can I bring her 'round the back?" the older youth asked. "I don't like to leave her alone. We heard a rumour there's horse thieves in the area."

Roy had heard no such rumour, but as his social contact was pretty much limited to Doctor Bella and her student, and occasionally Riza's teacher, that wasn't much of a surprise. He obligingly opened the back gate and let Maes lead the mare into the yard.

"Hey, it's really coming along!" Maes exclaimed, eyeing the garden appreciatively. "Any of it ready to eat, yet?"

Without waiting for an answer, he plucked a couple of tiny radishes from the earth, shook the soil from them, and bit down with a satisfied _crunch_.

"Maes! They're not ready!" Roy yelped. He had been keeping Riza away from the new vegetables for more than a week now. The last thing he had expected was to have to be equally vigilant with his older friend.

Maes laughed. "Okay, okay. Sorry." He finished off the two he had picked, then tossed the tops towards the midden. He sat down in the grass, stretching his legs contentedly. "What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I have chores," Roy said, retrieving his hoe and moving towards the potato hills.

"I'll help," Maes offered, scooting across the grass to pluck weeds from the rows of carrots. "How've you been?"

Roy contemplated a brave lie, but one look at his friend's kind face drove that thought away. He needed a sympathetic ear – someone who wouldn't judge him or think any less of him. "Not so good," he admitted. Then his courage left him, and he couldn't go on. It was so _hard_ to tell the truth. A cheerful lie that made everyone around him happy... that was so much easier.

Maes got onto his knees and came forward, beckoning to Roy, who knelt down in the dirt by his friend. "What's wrong?" the tinker's son asked gently, taking his grubby hand. "You can tell me. You know that."

Roy shrugged. "Nothing... really. It's just..."

And then it poured out: Riza's chickenpox and her father's subsequent illness, the struggle to keep the house in order, the chores that never seemed to be finished, the garden and the yard growing out of control, the studies that were so captivating and yet so taxing, and the stupid, hated reading assignments...

"I'm so _tired_," Roy finished in a tiny voice, letting out a small sigh of despair.

Maes was looking at him strangely. His pleasant, honest face was taut with worry, and his pale green eyes were glassy. "I... I don't know what to do," he confessed helplessly. "I'll talk to Gare and Eli. They usually..."

Roy shook his head. "It's okay," he said stoically, regaining his composure with some effort. "Sensei is feeling much better now, and I'm sure everything will work out."

Maes cocked a dubious eyebrow. "I should still talk to Gareth..." he said.

"Please don't," Roy whispered hastily. The last thing he wanted was for his friend's big brothers to think he was a stupid little kid. "Just... if you could help me finish up with the weeding..."

"S-sure thing," Maes said. He sounded very glad to have something concrete to do. It was odd, Roy thought. _He_ almost felt like the adult.

"Whose trade are you learning now?" he asked, trying to sound cheerful in the hopes that a little levity might disperse the pall that his stupid, babyish confession had cast on the bright afternoon.

"Nobody's," Maes said, shrugging his shoulder. "I'm just not cut out for 'em. So lately I've been doing a lot of selling: I'm pretty good at that. And hunting. Ben's been... he's been kind of down lately."

"Riza will be glad to see him," Roy said. "She really likes him, you know."

"I know," Maes concurred, smiling. "He likes her, too. The boys all think it's a great joke: they don't know what she sees in him, much less what he sees in her."

"Do _you_ think it's a joke?" asked Roy, a little warily.

Maes shook his head. "What I think is that they're both quiet, and they're both kind of outsiders. They suit each other."

"I think so, too," Roy confessed. The friendship that so puzzled Maes' siblings made perfect sense to him. Why wouldn't quiet, sober Ben and still, sombre Riza be friends?

"Besides," Maes added; "I think Ben misses having a little kid around. He's five years older than Gareth: he hasn't ever _not _had kids around before. Too bad Eli's baby died. I think she woulda been good for Ben." He flicked some dirt off of his fingertips, and went back to methodically uprooting the weeds. He grinned at Roy.

"Gosh, it's good to be back!" he said happily. "We're going to have so much fun this year: I can just feel it!"

_discidium_

Maes' instinct was right on the money, at least for the first couple of weeks. To Roy's surprise, Hawkeye-sensei seemed all too glad to get the boy out of the house for a few hours each afternoon, and these were spent tearing around the countryside with Maes. Many of the old games held no appeal, but there were always new things to try. They went hunting prairie chickens with Ben's gleaming push knives – which Maes threw beautifully, and Roy could hardly manage to toss ten yards without losing the straight line of fire. They made deliveries of wares to some of the local farmsteads. Once they even went to the old quarry, to skinny-dip in the frigid water. When Absalom found out about that escapade, he gave Maes a tongue-lashing, and told him he'd be washing dishes for a week.

That incident amazed Roy. Playing in the quarry was, apparently, very dangerous, and when he heard that, he had looked away, not wanting to see the balding tinker beating on his son. He had been shocked, therefore, when Absalom only scolded Maes thoroughly and meted out the extra chores. Hawkeye-sensei would have worn Roy out with the buckle end of his belt.

After school, Riza would come to the encampment, too. She and Ben spent a great deal of time together, playing string games or brushing down the horses. Riza would read to the grim-faced man, too. Maes explained to Roy that Ben hadn't ever been to school, and though he could cipher well enough he didn't read very well. Riza didn't seem to mind: her literacy was a skill that she could use to give her friend a gift. Ben never seemed to tire of the stories from Mr. Regnier's book, though Riza read them all several times, and the tale of Trinity Snow, Amestris' first female general, so often that Roy had it memorized.

It was in the third week that a damper was cast on the boys' summer. Maes was to blame.

It was a Wednesday evening, and Riza had just finished washing the dishes. Roy was folding the clean clothes, sorting them into four piles: one for each person, and a fourth for garments that needed mending. Doctor Bella would still take care of that task, and for that Roy was pathetically grateful. He didn't think he could learn how to sew on top of everything else.

A pebble glanced off of the kitchen window, and Riza gasped in surprise. Roy, knowing who it was, abandoned the shirt he had been folding and hurried to the back door.

Maes was in the yard, silhouetted against the growing indigo night in the east. Seeing Roy, he grinned.

"Listen, can you get away?" he asked. "Ben figures there's gonna be a meteor shower tonight."

"A meteor shower?" Roy echoed.

"Yeah, you know: shooting stars," Maes said, grinning. "Dad checked the almanac, and it looks like Ben's right. It's going to be a good one, and look!" He pointed heavenwards. "You couldn't ask for a clearer night. Please, Roy? Could you at least _ask_ him?"

The sick-puppy expression on his friend's face was both hilarious and oddly manipulative. Roy glanced over his shoulder, back into the house where Riza stood, watching him with her wide, perceptive eyes. He thought about Hawkeye-sensei, buried in his study reading a book about – of all strange things – _ink_. It couldn't, it wouldn't hurt to _ask_, surely...

"I guess..." Roy said. "Hang on a minute."

He closed the door and hurried past Riza, closing his ears to her anxious query. He put a hand on his master's door, steeled himself, and opened it carefully.

"Sensei?" he said softly.

The alchemist was curled on the settee by the fire, which despite the balmy warmth of the summer evening was piled high with wood. He looked up from the book.

"Yes?"

Roy swallowed hard and squared his shoulders. He knew from experience that Hawkeye-sensei despised timidity and respected resolve, but it was so _hard_ not to seem nervous. "Maes is here," he said as firmly as he could. "We want to go and... there's going to be a meteor shower."

The alchemist's brow twitched. "A meteor shower," he said dryly.

"You know: shooting stars?" Roy squeaked, his courage failing him.

"I know what a meteor shower is," Hawkeye said in annoyance. Then his eyes narrowed. "I suppose you two troublemakers will want to stay out all night watching it, won't you?"

"I..." Roy's lips moved helplessly, but that was the only sound that he could force out.

The alchemist raised a thin hand and waved him away. "Go. Enjoy it. I expect you to write a composition on it for tomorrow, though, understood? With no spelling mistakes."

"Yes, sensei!" Roy choked out, almost laughing. He could go with Maes! Even if he _did_ need to write a stupid paper on the experience. He'd worry about that tomorrow, though. Tonight, he was going to watch shooting stars with his friend. "Thank you!"

"Get out before I change my mind," the alchemist said gruffly, turning his eyes back to his reading.

Roy scraped a clumsy bow and retreated from the room. He snatched up his shoes from the corridor and hastened into the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Riza asked timidly.

"We're going to watch the meteor shower!" Roy said eagerly. He was so excited that his fingers were shaking, making it difficult to tie the shoestrings. "Maes and me."

"Maes and I," Riza corrected him softly. "What about the clothes?"

Roy looked at the table full of fresh laundry, and his merriment shrivelled. He couldn't leave that: if Hawkeye-sensei saw it, he would be _furious_...

Riza reached out and touched his elbow. "Don't worry, I can do it," she assured him, nodding capably. "Have fun."

"I will!" Roy breathed, his grin returning. He bent and kissed the little girl's cheek quickly. "'Bye!"

He hurried out the back door, not noticing the shining glow of happiness in Riza's carmine eyes as her fingertips brushed the place where he'd kissed her.

"You _can_?" Maes whooped in excitement as Roy dragged the lean-to door closed behind him.

The younger boy nodded fervently. "Where are we going?"

"Ben says it has to be well away from town, or the stupid gas lamps'll blind us," Maes said. "Lucky there's not much of a moon. C'mon, if we hurry we can get there before dark."

"But where..." Roy began, but Maes was already stepping over the fence, his long legs clearing the three feet without difficulty. Roy climbed after him, and soon the two of them were trotting across the prairie.

They took a sharp turn by the old mill road, and Roy stopped dead in his tracks. They were headed for the quarry.

"What?" Maes asked when he realized his companion had stopped walking. "What's the matter?"

"We aren't supposed to play in the quarry," Roy said. "Your father told us it's dangerous."

"No, he said it's dangerous to _swim_ in the quarry!" Maes clarified. "He's worried the bottom might give out, or something. Sometimes these old stoneworks have pretty nasty undertows, you know."

"But—"

"But what? We won't be swimming: we'll be watching the meteor shower," Maes said. "If we just climb down onto that big shelf, the cliff'll keep the lights of town away from us. Otherwise we'll have to go another four or five miles just to find a spot that's dark enough. There's nothing to worry about!"

As always, Maes' charisma and optimism were irresistible. Roy shrugged his shoulders and followed him, trying to ignore the grumbled misgivings churning up in the back of his mind.

"Cliff" was a misnomer. Rising up from the prairie was a bulwark of sand and slag that had accumulated during the years when the quarry had still been used. The pit itself was roughly elliptical, descending down some forty feet with ragged walls of the granite that had once been mined there. There was a shelf halfway down that curled around the edge like a corkscrew until it met the level of the groundwater that had flowed back into the bottom of the quarry once the old coal-driven pumps had been shut down. It was like a strange, subterranean lake laid bare to the sky, with a lip of rocky beach encircling it.

The road that had been used to drag the stone up reached the level of the plains on the far side of the quarry, but as Maes pointed out, it would add an extra quarter-mile to their walk just to reach it. So the two youths climbed over the slag instead.

The ascent was easy, but the descent was not. The parapet of rubble was loose and slippery, and Roy found himself leaning into an almost semi-prone position as he followed Maes' goatlike descent. There was a drop onto the top of the narrow footpath down the granite rock face, and Roy grunted softly as he landed on his knees, tearing his trousers and scraping the flesh away.

"You okay?" Maes asked, helping him to his feet.

"I'm fine," Roy fibbed, brushing himself off. In fact, he was growing progressively nervous, and he was angry that he had torn his pants. He tried so hard to keep his clothes nice, too. Shabby garments were in his mind inexorably linked to penury and want, and the abuse that went with them. In recent months he had begun to grow rather particular about his appearance.

"Good," Maes said sunnily. "We'll have to watch our step here, 'cause there are loose—"

At that moment the older boy's footing faltered. Whether he had stepped on a loose rock that had given way beneath him, or misjudged and tried to walk out over the edge, Roy didn't know, but with a startled cry, Maes pitched over the edge. In the gloom, Roy could hardly see him as he fell, bouncing off the side of a boulder and vanishing into the dark hole of the quarry.

"Maes!" the boy cried, forgetting his own safety as he scrambled down the incline after his friend. As he went, he could feel his limbs gaining more abrasions and his clothing more tears, but he didn't care. He shouted his friend's name again, frantically. The quarry was dangerous, Absalom Hughes had _said_ the quarry was dangerous, and now Maes had fallen.

Roy reached the broad shelf, but he couldn't see Maes. It was all but black in the depths of the pit, with the high wall of stone and the heaps of waste eclipsing the last ribbons of sunset.

"Maes!" he exclaimed again. His voice echoed enormously, reverberating around him: _Maes, Maes, maes, aes aes aes aessss..._

Terror seized his heart. He turned around, and there was a resounding _crunch!_ beneath his foot. He knelt down. He had stepped on his friend's glasses! He picked them up, and heard the tinkling of glass as the broken lens fell from the frame.

"Maes? MAES!" (_Maes, maes, maes, aessss... _the quarry shouted back).

Not bothering to rise again, Roy crawled forward, groping against the ground, praying that his hands would collide with his friend's body. What if Maes had rolled off the edge? He hadn't heard a splash, but what if Maes was in the water? Roy could float on his back, and paddle enough to keep his head above water, but he couldn't swim properly, and he'd never be able to pull the bigger youth out. And if Maes had sunk below the surface... he'd never find him, never...

A disoriented moan rang out in the darkness. It was the most beautiful sound Roy had ever heard.

"Maes!" he exclaimed, freezing so that he could hear where the sound was coming from.

"Gareth?"

"No, no, it's Roy," the boy said, scrambling forward on hands and knees. He found his friend's shoulder and gripped it franticly. "Are you okay?"

"I think..." Maes turned his head, squinting in an attempt to see Roy's face. "I think I blacked out for a second."

A terse laugh of relief spilled from Roy's lips. His eyes were growing accustomed to the pale light of the crescent moon, and he could make out his friend's features. There was a dark stain of blood oozing from under his hair, and his cheek was covered in ugly scrapes, but he was awake and he was alive!

"You fell," he said, sliding the broken glasses onto Maes' nose. At least there was one lens still intact. "Can you get up?"

"Sure," Maes said. He pushed himself onto his elbows, tried to curl his legs up under his body, and fell to earth with a hoarse scream of anguish.

"What is it?" Roy cried, terrified by the sudden violence of the sound.

Maes couldn't answer him. His eyes were screwed tightly closed, and his chest heaved as he tried to get a handle on whatever agony was ripping through him. Small whimpering sounds came from behind clenched teeth, and his hand groped up 'til it found Roy's shoulder, fingers digging into the joint and squeezing so tightly that Roy very nearly cried out in pain himself.

"I'm here," he stammered, not sure what else to do or say. He planted a hand on Maes' cheek, stroking it as comfortingly as he knew how. "It's okay, Maes. I'm right here. What's wrong?"

"My leg..." Maes choked out, rolling his hips a little. He flinched, gasped, and then gave a tiny, rueful nod. "I think it's broken."

Roy looked down, and sure enough, Maes' left foot was stuck out at an awkward angle, his shin bulging just above the ankle where it definitely should not. Suddenly, Roy felt a little queasy. He looked resolutely away from the twisted limb.

"I'll go get help," he said stoutly. "I'll go and get Gareth and your father. We'll get you to Doctor Bella."

Maes didn't answer, but when Roy tried to stand up, he reached out and grabbed his wrists with a tiny sound of terror.

"Roy, no..." he choked out.

He was scared that he'd get into trouble, Roy thought. He knew that in Maes' position, _he'd_ be terrified, too: broken leg or not, he could just imagine how Hawkeye-sensei would react to finding out he'd gone someplace that had been expressly forbidden. "You can't worry about that now," he said. "You're hurt. Maybe they'll be mad, but we need to get you to the doctor."

"N-no," Maes said, clutching desperately at Roy's shirt. "It's... it's not that..."

His eyes rolled away from his friend, taking in the dark, cavernous void of the quarry.

"I... I'm scared," he whispered in a tiny, vulnerable voice unlike anything Roy had ever heard from his strong and confident friend. "Please... d-don't leave me here alone."

"But I have to!" Roy said desperately. "I've gotta get help: nobody knows where we are!"

"They'll... they'll figure it out," Maes said. "Ben'll know... he understands things. Please, Roy, please don't leave me alone!"

He sounded so much like Riza had after her night terrors: frightened and defenceless and so very weak. It scared Roy, but he couldn't let on. Maes needed him to be strong for both of them right now. Instinctively, he hardened his face into a reassuring smile.

"I won't," he promised stoutly. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

Maes made a tiny noise of gratitude that sounded disconcertingly like a sob, and pressed Roy's hand to his cheek again. "Thanks," he breathed.

"Sure," Roy managed. He couldn't say anything else, for fear of bursting into tears. He screwed his eyes closed and tried to think. It couldn't be comfortable for Maes, lying there on the rock face, but he didn't dare move him. And the night was getting cold...

He took off his shirt and covered his friend's bare feet gently, trying not to jar the injured limb. Then, babbling pointlessly all the while, he felt under Maes' body, scraping away stones and gravel until he was confident that at least Maes wasn't being stabbed from below. Then he moved back towards his friend's head.

"Is that any better?" he asked softly.

"Much," Maes said, trying to force a shaky grin. He was shivering violently. "D-damn, it's getting cold," he tried to quip. "Unp-predictable weather..."

It _was_ getting cold. "Are you sure you don't want me to go and get help?" Roy asked quietly, doing his best to hide his own fright.

This time there was no mistaking the sob. Maes' whole body tensed and he grabbed Roy's arm with such force that he almost popped his ulnar tendon out of alignment.

"It's okay, it's okay," Roy said hastily, stroking his friend's blood-crusted hair. "I'm not going anywhere. We'll wait. They'll find us. Ben'll know where you went."

Maes whimpered softly. "Roy," he said. "Roy, I gotta..."

Then he turned his head away and began to vomit. Startled, Roy pushed Maes' shoulder up, rolling him onto his side despite the strangled wail of pain that tore through the retching. When Maes at last fell back with a soft moan of torment, Roy used his hand to wipe his friend's mouth as best he could.

"'M sorry... it _hurts_..." Maes lamented groggily.

"It-t's okay," Roy told him, doing his utmost to sound confident. He scooted around to the other side of his friend and did his best to scrape the vomit away from his face. His hands were filthy now, too filthy to touch his friend with, so he crawled to the edge of the shelf and lay on his belly, reaching down to rinse them in the lake below. He gathered up a handful of water, cupping it tightly, and tried to carry it to Maes. There was little more than a tablespoonful left by the time he reached his friend, but he used it to wet the older boy's lips.

Maes made another feeble attempt at a smile. "Thanks..." he said, then subsisted into bone-deep trembling as his body started to surrender to shock.

Roy hesitated for only a moment before making up his mind. He got down on the ground next to his companion, pressing his body against Maes'. Gently, he lifted the older boy's head and tucked his own arm under it, pillowing the dark hair as best he could. He put his other arm over his friend, groping for his hand and squeezing it reassuringly.

"It's going to be okay," he promised.

Maes was gnawing on his lip, but he managed a tiny nod. "O-okay," he faltered, burying his face against Roy's shoulder. "I'm glad you're here..."

Roy didn't point out that if he'd gone for help his friend's brothers would be here by now, figuring out some way to get him back to town. Maes needed him and he couldn't abandon him... not even to aid him. He rested his head against the rocky ground and nodded. "I'm glad I'm here, too," he said.

There was a long silence, and Roy thought that his friend had slipped into an endorphin-induced slumber, but then Maes moved his head a little.

"Hey, look," he said vaguely, nodding up towards the sky and looking through his one good eye. "Shooting stars."

Roy looked up, and sure enough, there they were. A meteor streaked across the sky in its brief moment of glory. Then another crossed the velvety expanse of the sky. And another. 

Soon, the night was illuminated with the short-lived swansongs of the celestial travellers.

The boys watched them in silence, the cosmic spectacle distracting Roy from his fear and Maes from his pain. Sometime after the last of the meteors fizzled and burned out, Maes fell asleep, his head heavy against Roy's arm. The younger youth pressed his body closer to his friend's, sharing his meagre warmth. He couldn't say when, but at last he, too, succumbed to the sweet oblivion of slumber.

It was thus that the Brothers Hughes found them, just before dawn – led, as Maes had predicted, by the solitary woodsman whom Riza loved so well.


	59. A Grim Commitment

**Chapter 59: A Grim Commitment**

After Roy left, Riza finished folding the clothes, and then carried them upstairs an armload at a time. She didn't know where to put Papa's, but she did her best. Then she took her nightgown and went into the bathroom. She filled the tub with nice, warm water.

Roy was so grown up, now, she thought. Sometimes she wondered what had happened to her boy... the quiet, nervous one for whom she often had to speak. The boy she had to protect. Now, Roy was so strong and so brave. He always knew what to do, and he wasn't even frightened of Papa. Riza wondered sometimes if her father had chased away her boy, leaving this smart, capable youth in his place.

She paddled the water with her toes, and picked up the bar of store-bought soap. She washed her legs and her arms, her tummy and her chest and her private parts. Then she lay down, dipping her head under the water so that her hair billowed and floated around her skull like a pale golden halo. She ran a hand through it, making sure that it was thoroughly wetted. She relaxed a little. It felt nice to lie like this. Riza loved bathtime.

It was at that moment that the bathroom door opened with a sudden _bang_. Riza sat up with a tiny cry as her father burst into the room.

"Papa!" she yelped. "Bathtime is private!" She pulled her knees to her chest, trying to cover her bottom with her hands.

"Don't be ridiculous," her father said. He had Momma's measuring tape in his hands. "Stand up and let me look at you."

Riza's lower lip quivered. She was naked! Papa hadn't seen her without her clothes on in such a long time! _Nobody_ had seen her with no clothes on in months and months! "B-but Papa..." she stammered. Couldn't he at least let her put on some pantalets?

"Stand up, I say!" the man told her sternly. "Or I'll stand you up myself."

Riza obeyed him, trembling a little. She wished Roy was home! Roy understood that bathtime was private. If he were here, she knew that _he'd_ make Papa let her put on her pantalets.

"Turn around, let me see your back," Papa ordered. Riza turned. She put her hands down between her legs, trying to retain some shred of modesty. An embarrassed tear trickled from her left eye as she felt her father's eyes grazing over her body.

He grabbed her shoulder, using his thumb to smooth and stretch the skin over her trapezius. Then he went to work with the tape measure, noting the width of her shoulders, the length of her spine, the breadth of her waist and of her narrow hips – all the while muttering to himself. Riza was shivering with cold as the water dried on her skin, and his rapidly moving hands made her feel sick and ashamed. Finally, he felt each and every vertebrae, beginning at the base of her neck and continuing right down to her tailbone. Then he cursed under his breath.

"You're too small!" he growled in annoyance. "I thought girls were supposed to grow faster than boys!"

With that, he left, slamming the door as he went. Riza turned to be sure that he really was gone, and then her knees gave out and she sank down into the now-tepid water, hugging herself and trembling with shame. She was too small? Too small for what? It didn't matter: the message was clear. She wasn't good enough for her father.

She just wished that she knew why.

_discidium_

The newfangled plaster cast that Sarah Lauren applied to Maes' broken leg gave him more freedom than a traditional wooden brace would have, but it still slowed him down a little. His father found a pair of sturdy willow branches that he carved into handsome crutches, the top of which Gareth upholstered with wool batting and flannel. The glover also fashioned an oilcloth mukluk that Maes could wear to keep the dressing dry. Eli furnished a new pair of glasses to replace the ones Roy had destroyed. Instead of round lenses, these were rectangular, rather like Benjamin's. They gave Maes' face a leaner, more grown-up look. Thus equipped, he was up and hobbling around at three-quarters of his usual speed within a fortnight, once more without a care in the world.

Roy, on the other hand, was crippled by the incident. He didn't want to run the risk of letting Maes get hurt again. Added to that was the memory of his punishment for being brought home at half past six in the morning, with shredded clothes and iodine-painted limbs and Eli Hughes grinning apologetically over his shoulder. Though the glassgrinder had explained, the alchemist had little sympathy. As Hawkeye-sensei saw it, the boys had done something foolish, deliberately putting themselves in danger. If Maes was injured, he was very sorry to hear it. If Roy had a few scrapes and bruises, it was better than he deserved for being so stupid. Adding insult to literal injury, sensei still made his pupil write a composition on the experience.

By the time Maes was up and about again, Roy's physical recovery from the consequences was almost complete, but he was still wary. Fortunately, the range of activities in which the injured boy could participate was limited, so there was no cause for conflict. They spent a great deal of time at the tinkers' camp, and occasionally went into town.

At last, of course, the tinker's stint in town drew to a close, and Roy and Maes said their farewells. There was nothing, then, to do but wait for the first letter to come.

_discidium_

_August 21, Dear Roy:_

_Had my cast removed today. Took us a week to find a sawbones who knew what to do with it. My leg's all hairy. I mean, darker than the hair on the other one, I guess 'cause it's been out of the sun. When the cast came off, it was _covered_ in dead skin! Eli said it's the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen, but I'm not so sure about that. Anyway, I've gotta rebuild the muscles: it looks almost as scrawny as one of your legs!_

_Now that I'm off the crutches, Dad's already started needling me about what I'm going to do with my life. I think he just wants to make sure that he doesn't wind up with another Ira on his hands. Ira's _still _an apprentice tinker, and he's almost as lousy at it as I am! I don't know what to do: I'm no good at the __trades at all. Gareth says I'm smart, and could go to one of the universities, but where would the money come from? It costs a ten thousand six hundred _sens _a year just for the tuition, and I'd have to get lodgings too... anyway, I don't think I could bear being alone, you know?_

_I guess I could always take up selling: I'm good at it, really. But I don't know if I could stand just to do that forever. It's what I've been doing practically since I could talk, and I feel like I'm ready for something new. Hah! Maybe I should come back to Hamner and study alchemy with you, hey? _

_Here's hoping all of you are well. Ben sends his regards to Riza._

_Your friend,  
Maes_

_discidium_

_September 12, Dear Maes,_

_I know you won't get this 'til winter, but I wanted to write anyway. I miss you a lot. Of course, now that the weather is colder I don't have much time to waste. There's wood to lay by for winter, and sensei has me learning new tramsmutation circles._

_Riza was promoted to the Fourth Reader at the start of fall term. She's very __exscited__. Mostly the students are 13 or 14 years old, so it means she's very smart, since she's only almost 9. She reads really well, and she's quite good at figuring, too._

_I'm glad your leg is better, and I hope you find something that you like to do._

_From,  
Roy_

_discidium_

_September 18, Dear Roy,_

_The weather is getting cold, so we're headed south. I can't wait! I hope there'll be letters waiting for me in South City. I don't know, though. Dad doesn't much want to head south this year. There's rumours that there's going to be a war with Aerugo. It's strange: relations between us and them have always been pretty good. After all, they're a civilized nation even if they _do _have a queen instead of a Fuhrer. _

_What's even stranger is that everybody seems more tense: not just southward, but if you head east, too. The Ishbal territory isn't taking well to some of the new rules, I think. I wonder if our new Fuhrer knows how hot things are getting out here. Tiath says that the eastern frontiers are a long way from Central, and he doesn't just mean geographically. Eli says we shouldn't worry about Ishbal. After all, they're part of Amestris now, and of course they want our protection. It's the Aerugans we should worry about. They're tough as nails when they want to be, even if their food _is_ first-rate._

_Speaking of food, I tried a stint as camp cook. I lasted exactly four days. The first three I just burned stuff, mixed up the salt and the sugar, that sort of thing. But then I tried to make a pheasant stew, and it gave everybody the runs. So now Gareth's doing the cooking again, and they've all had a good laugh and forgiven me. All except Eli. I gather it put a damper on some big date he had with an old flame. Oops._

_How're the alchemy studies going? Can you turn lead into gold, yet?_

_With love,  
Maes_

_discidium_

_October 9, Dear Maes,_

_Turning lead into gold is against the law. I could spend the rest of my life in gaol if I tried. You mustn't say things like that, even to be funny. If sensei saw that letter he'd skin me alive!_

_Speaking of sensei, he's doing some very, very strange research. I don't know what it is, but it has nothing to do with fire. __He's got books about ink and about metal, and even one about the human body and the changes that happen when we turn into teenagers. I read some of that when he wasn't looking. Am I really going to grow hair under my arms? It sounds itchy._

_The pictures were very interesting. I didn't realize boys and girls were so different. There were drawings of how a baby grows, too. The baby sits upside-down in the women's belly. I wonder if it makes the baby dizzy. I didn't get a chance to find out. While I was trying to read it, sensei came in. He was so angry..._

_Anyway, Maes, I still miss you. I can't wait for the summer._

'_Bye,  
Roy_

_discidium_

_November 5, Dear Roy,_

_Happy Triumph Day. Sorry I haven't written in so long. We've been moving more than usual. Everyone's jumpy and suspicious because of the rumours about Aerugo. I talked to an apprentice blacksmith who knows the telegraph operator's assistant, who says that his boss heard from another operator who's sister works a switchboard in Central that the officers in the city are saying that the queen and the Fuhrer tried to hold peace talks... and she wound up spitting right in his face. Imagine that! _Spitting_ in the Fuhrer's face! Apparently he's trying to smooth things over anyway, even though he was the one who was insulted, but it really looks like there's going to be a war._

_Ben's been really down lately. I'm worried about him. He's gone off three times in the last couple of months, and the last time he almost landed in a cell. Eli turned up just in time and managed to sweet-talk him out of it! Luckily the local sergeant had a lady corporal on his staff, or we'd still be stuck in that town._

_I wish Ben wouldn't do that. It's scary, you know? Sometimes he does it 'cause Ira rags on him, but other times he just goes off on his own. After the last time, I asked him why he does it. He just shrugged his shoulders. "My guilt tells me to," he said. "__My sin. It says to me, 'Ben, it's time!', and then I go. I can't argue with it." After that he went and killed two rabbits, which we needed for dinner, and a fox, which we didn't. Gareth's making me a pair of fox-fur gloves, though, so it's not a total waste._

_Anyway, I've blithered on long enough. We'll be in South City in a couple of weeks, and I'd better have letters waiting, or I'll be mighty disappointed in you!_

_Remember, don't let life get you down!_

_Your friend forever,  
Maes_

_discidium_

_November 30, Dear Maes,_

_Riza says there's going to be a war, too. She ought to know. Her teacher used to be in the military, and he still has friends who are soldiers. He says it's a shame that Amestris and Aerugo couldn't make piece, but if we have to fight it's better than the altranativ. Of course, Riza didn't tell that to sensei. _He _says that there's no sense in fighting: we'll just lose a lot of soldiers, and maybe lands and normal people, too, and the Aerugans'll do the same, and nobody will be any happier. Sensei doesn't agree with the Fuhrer and he doesn't like the military._

_Do you remember Doctor Bella's student? She's gone now, and she got married. She sent a picture of her and her husband. He's got very blonde hair. I hope Sarah will be happy. I liked her a lot._

_Do you think you'll ever get married? I know none of your brothers are, but your father was, right? Hawkeye-sensei said alchemists shouldn't get married until they've istablished they're research. He didn't marry Riza's momma until he was almost thirty._

_Hope this letter finds you well.  
Roy._

_discidium_

_December 12, Dear Roy_

_Hurray! You did write to me! I'm so glad. Now I can answer your letters. Tell Riza congratulations for making it to the Fourth Reader. Wow, she must really be smart. I was only joking about turning lead into gold._

_Of course boys and girls are different! I could've told you that! And yup, you'll get hair under your arms and other places too. It's not that itchy once it all comes in. There are good things 'bout growing up, too. Your muscles get bigger, your voice gets deeper, you get taller. And you could really do to get a little taller._

_I don't think I'll ever get married. I talked to Dad about it, and asked him why none of the boys are. He laughed, and said; "Ben's never cared much for girls, and Gareth never had a chance to catch a wife: he was too busy playing mother to the rest of you. Tia's got all the charm of a bullfrog, and Ira's too lazy. As for Eli..."_

_He didn't finish, but I know what he was going to say. Eli could never stand to be married to just _one_ girl: he'd need a whole harem of wives, like the emperor of Xing! And how would they all fit into a caravan?_

_He's too busy to think about women now, though. The glassworks is busy building lenses for the sights on rifles! The gunsmiths in South City are doubling production, and the place is _full_ of soldiers. Gosh, Roy, there really is going to be a war._

_Love,  
Maes_

_discidium_

_December 17, Dear Roy,_

_I know I just wrote you, and you probably haven't even got that letter yet, but I had to send you this. You'll never guess what happened._

_Ira and I were down on the waterfront, buying salted fish before we left the city. There was table there with three soldiers at it, and one of them was making speeches. He talked about the safety of Amestris and the duty of the able-bodied to protect __the weak and the vulnerable. They're going to need soldiers when the war comes, and he said that the ones in the city right now all come from Central. They don't care about the south, or about protecting it and its people. So he and his friends were trying to recruit local boys to join up. I thought that was funny. Wouldn't they want the trained soldiers from Central, instead of a lot of sheep farmers and river rats? But no, he wanted local boys._

_You'll never guess. Ira enlisted! That's right, our Ira, who's never done an honest day's work in his life! He signed up right on the spot, and the next day he went to headquarters and he was issued a uniform and he moved into the NCO living quarters. He'll be training for two months, and then he'll be a corporal._

_Dad was upset. He didn't want Ira to go, and I think he was a little hurt that he didn't ask first, you know? Anyway, that's the big news, and it sounds like we'll be staying in the city for a while. Tia thinks he can talk Ira out of it, but I think what he's doing is wonderful. If he helps protect innocent people, isn't that more useful than being a lazy apprentice? I think so._

_Cheers!  
Maes_

_discidium_

_December 29, Dear Maes,_

_I think what Ira is doing is wonderful. Riza's teacher says that soldiers have to be put in danger, and sometimes even get hurt or even die, so that the people can be safe. It's equivalent exchange, you see? Soldiers are hurt so that normal people don't have to be._

_Of course, I hope Ira doesn't get hurt. That would be terrible. I still think he's doing a very brave thing._

_Did you know that there are alchemists in the military? There are. Maybe I'll join up one day: I could really help the people that way. Alchemy has to be used to help people. Sensei always says that, but he never does anything with his alchemy. I will, though. I know I will._

_From,  
Roy_

_discidium_

_January 13, Dear Roy,_

_It's a new year, and I've never seen South City like this. It's so busy! There are trains full of supplies going through every single day, coming from Central and going to the front. It's not a very active war, Ira says. There's a lot of watching and waiting. The enemy mostly stays on their side of the border, and we stay on ours, but there's sometimes a little battle or two. Nobody in Ira's battalion's been hurt, but some of the ones further east have taken heavy losses. They're looking for men all the time now._

_I've been talking with Dad and Gareth, and I think I'm going to enlist. I can't stand it, living on the edge of the city, watching Ben get worse every day. He drinks all the time, now, not just when he's off on a spin. I don't think he likes living around so many people, but we can't leave, 'cause the villages further south are all too suspicious right now, with the war going on and the soldiers everywhere. Anyway, I'm no use to a tinker, and the state needs good soldiers. They need people who know how to fight, and even if I've never fired a gun I'm good with my fists. Ben's knives would make good weapons, too, I think. Anyway, I went to Southern Headquarters yesterday to see if they'd take me. They did. I'll be nineteen next week, and I'm tall and I'm strong and I'm fit. I start training on Monday. I hope I'll wind up in Ira's company. It'd be mighty lonely by myself with a bunch of strangers._

_I'll still write to you when I can, don't worry. Just now, send your letters to Southern Headquarters. I've put in a card with the address. The mailroom will see it gets to me._

_I guess I won't see you next summer after all, though._

_Your friend,  
Corporal Maes Hughes_

Roy stared at the letter, a lump of disappointment choking him. Maes had joined the military? He had always known that his friend was older than he was, and would grow up faster, but now that reality was striking home. Maes was a soldier, who would be fighting in a far away war. Roy might never, ever see him again.

All he could do was attempt to go on with his small daily struggles, and wait breathlessly for the next letter.


	60. The Demons of Benjamin Hughes

**Chapter 60: The Demons of Benjamin Hughes**

Letters from Maes came less frequently as the months wore on. He wrote every fortnight detailing his training as a non-commissioned officer, but once he was deployed into the field the mail service became more erratic. He wasn't right on the front, but as near enough that his epistles became filled with colourful and humorous accounts of supply shortages and camp privations. It seemed that most of his time was spent drilling and waiting: there was very little excitement behind the liens. Roy got the sense that his friend was irked by the prolonged inaction, but Maes never complained.

Roy didn't either. He kept his own letters as pleasant and innocuous as possible. No mention was ever made of the drudgery of daily chores, or late nights bent over dusty books that had nothing to do with alchemy, or the penalties for experimenting on his own. He boasted with affected pride of his ability to make clay pots out of soil, or to extrude salt from plant matter, or to make all manner of strange forms out of the back yard hedge.

He wrote now and then about Riza's academic triumphs: the blue ribbon she had won in the history competition, and the praise she had garnered for her beautifully written papers. Maes never seemed especially interested in these anecdotes, but Roy continued to include them. He was proud of her, even if Hawkeye-sensei was not.

Sensei was behaving very strangely. He was foul-tempered and irritable, and had once more taken to locking himself in his study for hours at a time. On such days Roy could sometimes hear strange gasping and hissing noises from within, as if the alchemist was in pain. Though he was curious and knew that he could use the array to open the door, he knew better than to try. Even when he found bloodstains on the inside of Hawkeye's trousers, or serum-caked bandages in the midden, Roy held his tongue. He lacked the courage to ask what was going on..

The weekly dinners at Doctor Bella's were for both children a welcome respite from the suffocating atmosphere in the house. Some afternoons, too, Roy would walk over to the school, ostensibly to see Riza home. In reality, he went to talk to her teacher. Mr. Regnier's wry, pleasant humour and cheerful disposition were a welcome change from Hawkeye-sensei's strict and serious demeanour.

They talked about politics and about the war in the south. Once Regnier realized that the conflict was of interest to Roy, he started clipping articles from the Central Gazette and the South City Tribune. In this way, Roy was able to keep abreast of the latest battles, always watching for any mention of the 23rd Light Infantry – Maes' regiment. As long as they were not mentioned, and the letters continued to trickle through the censor net, he knew that his friend was still safe... and bored.

It was on a Wednesday afternoon in June, after just such a visit, that Roy and Riza met the Hughes convoy as it rolled into town.

It was an oddly derelict sight. The smaller of the two caravans was absent, as were two of the big dray geldings. Absalom Hughes sat alone on the driver's seat of the lone caravan, and Gareth was driving the wagon, to which Quoit the stallion and his mare Nancy were hitched. Tied to the back of the low-slung cart was a spindly colt who looked far too young to be travelling. Tiath, as always, rode his pony, but the years were telling on Dauntless, too. His step was not so high, nor so befitting his name as it once had been. Last of all came faithful old Dot, her neck bowed with age. On her back sat Benjamin. He was slouched over the saddle, clinging to the pommel instead of the reins and letting the docile mare make her own way.

Seeing the children in the road ahead, Maes' father tugged on his reins. "Woah, boys!" he called out, speaking as much to his sons as he was to his horses.

The two vehicles ground to a halt, and the tinker plucked his pipe from his lips and doffed his cap.

"Miss Hawkeye," he said politely, smiling at Riza. Then he grinned. "Roy!"

"Welcome back, sir!" the boy said enthusiastically. He looked at the other three men. "Where's Eli?"

Tiath threw back his head and laughed. "You know, we've been asked that question in every town we've visited this year," he said; "and this is the first time we've heard it from a fella."

Gareth chuckled ruefully, and Absalom grinned. Roy waited expectantly for something, not quite certain what it was. Then he realized that what he was missing was a mock-defensive quip from the lecherous glassgrinder.

"He's in South City," Absalom said. "Between lenses for the gunsmiths and goggles for the heavy artillery, his guild has more than enough work to go around."

Riza, bored with this talk, passed the wagon and smiled up at her friend.

"Ben?" she said softly. "I'm glad to see you."

He raised his head to look at her with dull, bleary and deeply shadowed eyes. He was thinner than he had been last year, and unshaved. His glasses were smudged with grease and his hair was dirty and shaggy, his temples painted with grey. He looked, Roy realized abruptly, like an old man.

"Riza," Benjamin said, his voice slower and more monotonic than ever. "How are you?"

"I'm good," Riza said, staring up at him as if she, too, could scarcely believe the change. She reached out to touch his leg just above the top of his boot. "Are you okay?"

Ben blinked at her dumbly. Gareth shot a wary look at Tiath, who brought his steed around and bent to gently guide Riza away. It was an impressive piece of horsemanship that Roy was too preoccupied to admire.

"He's fine," the journeyman tinker promised, smiling reassuringly at Riza. "He's just tired. We've been riding all day."

"Oh," Riza said, glancing askance at the oldest Hughes brother. "Can I come to visit tomorrow?"

Gareth made an odd choking noise deep in his throat, but Tia grinned.

"Sure you can," he said. "Ben loves you to pieces: you're his best girl! Right, Ben?"

The woodsman nodded slowly. Then his chin sunk leadenly to his chest. Roy cast a querying look at Absalom, who shook his head almost imperceptibly.

"Maes said he'd send you letters to hold for us?" the aging tinker said, clearly trying to divert everyone's attention.

"Yes, that's right," Roy said, taking Riza by the hand and drawing her to the side of the road. "Should I run and fetch them?"

Absalom shook his head. "Why don't you bring them by our campsite tomorrow?" he asked. "We'd be proud to have the two of you join us for dinner."

"Thank you!" Roy said. "We have to ask sensei, but I don't think he'll care. Mind. I don't think he'll mind."

"I'll look forward to it, then," said Absalom. He smiled kindly at Riza. "Good day to you, Miss Hawkeye. Giddayup!"

The wagons lurched on, the two riders bringing up the rear. Tiath maneuvered his steed as close to Dot as dared, and it was a good thing that he did, too, for Ben faltered in the saddle, and Tia had to grab his elbow to steady him.

Roy turned away, feeling ill. Whatever was wrong with Ben, it was obvious why it had upset Maes. Though he had always been grim and silent, the hunter now looked positively ravaged. Hoping against hope that Riza had not noticed Ben's swaying, Roy led the girl on towards the Hawkeye house.

_discidium_

Riza watched Ben Hughes as he took a mug of nettle tea from Gareth. Roy was sitting on the tongue of the caravan, watching Tiath whittle a handle cover for a cooking pot. Mr. Hughes had taken the letters from Maes into the trees, where he could read them privately.

Ben took two sips of the tea, waiting until his brother was once again busy a the cooking fire. Then he poured half of it into the grass, took a little tin flask from the inner pocket of his jacket, and poured a clear liquid into the mug. It vanished into the murky tea.

"What's that?" Riza asked softly, cognizant of the fact that her stolid companion did not want the others to know what he had just done.

"Liquid courage," Ben muttered darkly, drinking deeply of the mysterious concoction. He grimaced, then rubbed his eyes and looked unsteadily at her through his dirty spectacles. "It's good to see you again. Is your papa treating you right?"

Riza didn't know how to answer. She didn't always like the way Papa treated her or the cruel things he said to her, but she understood them. She wasn't the child that he wanted, and that was why he couldn't love her.

"Papa is very busy," she said quietly.

Ben nodded sadly. "I'll bet he is." He reached out and touched her hair ever so gently with a hand that quivered with a fine baseline tremor. "I've missed you. What about school? Are you working hard?"

"Yes!" Riza said, suddenly eager. School was the one aspect of her life that _did_ allow her to feel adequate and even valued. "I'm learning geometry now. That's math with shapes."

"You're a clever lass," Ben said vaguely. "I brought you something."

He produced a clumsily wrapped brown paper package from a basket by the dish crate. Trying to smooth one loose corner, he handed it to her. Riza looked at it and smiled.

"For me?" she said wonderingly.

Ben nodded. "I saw it in South City and it reminded me of you."

Carefully, Riza unwrapped the gift. It was a book, heavy and old and beautiful. She turned it in her hands, and fingered the embossed gold lettering on the spine. _A Better Soldier None_, it was entitled, _by Currer Bell_.

"Thank you..."

"Here." Ben gently opened the book and turned a leaf of onionskin to reveal the first glossy plate. It was a tinted engraving of a girl, her golden hair pulled back from her face. She sat beneath a tree, her apron filled with apples and one ruddy orb in her outstretched hand. She was offering it to a sleek black stallion, and smiling ever so slightly up at the horse. Riza stroked the silky paper, quietly delighted by the beautiful drawing.

"I thought," Ben said quietly, taking another sip of his doctored tea. "I thought maybe you could read it to me."

Riza should not have been surprised, but she was... and she was gratified. She knew Ben couldn't really read much, and she had read to him in the past, but it was still affirming to be asked to do something that an adult could not. It made her feel that she was not entirely worthless.

She turned to the first page of text. "'_Chapter One,_ she read. _In Which I Am No Longer A Child. Though the first ten years of my life were unmarked by any extraordinary happenings, a brief synopsis is required to put into perspective that which came afterwards. I, Holly Ann Zarubin, was born in the vicinity of M-- to a wealthy wool merchant and his second wife. I was raised in the manner befitting..._'"

As she read, she was only dimly aware of the three young men – Gareth, Tiath and Roy – migrating together to watch the spectacle. Gareth stroked his chin pensively.

"It's a pity we can't stay here all year," he murmured. "It's the best I've seen him in months."

Roy didn't say anything, but he looked like he wanted to.

_discidium_

It was in the Hughes family's third and last week in town that the crisis came. Roy could tell that Absalom, Gareth and Tia had all been anticipating it, and it seemed like they had expected it to come sooner than it did. Whatever Ben's burden, it was plain that Riza's quiet presence eased his heart. The two of them sat together every afternoon as she read from the gothic novel, which had an unusual military bent. Ben had, apparently, chosen it for the pictures, but it was actually an interesting story, from what Roy heard. Currer Bell, whoever he was or had been, had a gift for words.

Roy had tried to wrangle some explanation of Benjamin's decline from his brothers, but to no avail. Gareth would only tighten his jaw and shake his head sadly, looking vaguely guilty, and all that Tiath had admitted was that Ben was drinking a lot. That made no sense to Roy. The town drunks were merry, maudlin men who sang bawdy songs and told funny stories. Ben's quiet, brooding misery was something else entirely.

Things came to a head on a Tuesday evening. Roy and Riza had been invited to dine with Mr. Regnier, who had a book on famous battles for Riza to read and more news of the current war for Roy. Riza was reading on the bed, and the two males talking seriously at the table, when there came a noise from the street below. It drifted up through the window, which was open against the oppressive heat of the small chamber.

"Easy does it, mister! Put 'em down, now..." someone said loudly.

There was a furious curse, and a sound of ash-bins tipping over and rolling against a wall. Riza looked up from her book with frightened eyes, and Roy turned questioning eyes on the schoolteacher. Regnier was sitting poker-straight in his chair, his eyes suddenly wary and alert, like a hawk on the prowl. It was a look of military readiness that Roy had never seen before, and it was an oddly daunting sight.

The angry man was mumbling something incoherent. The other voice interjected. "I'm sorry, but _no_. You've had enough. Now go home and sleep it off."

"Damn your eyes, wha' kinduva place are you runnin'?" the drunk slurred viciously. "I got money, isn't my money good enough for you?"

Riza dropped the book and shimmied off the bed. "That's Ben!" she cried.

Regnier looked at her, and then at Roy, his question obvious.

"Ben Hughes," he said. "He's the son of the tinker. He's Riza's friend."

The little girl was already halfway to the door. Her one-armed teacher bolted forward and stopped her.

"You wait here," he said firmly. "I'll go and see what's going on."

There was another crash and a curse from below. Regnier opened the door and ran down the steps. Roy glanced at Riza, standing helplessly in the midst of the small room, and then hurried after him.

In the street below, two men whom Roy recognized from the village were moving to and fro defensively, hands held out in an attempt to appear nonthreatening – though in fact their postures made them look like they were trying to corner a rat. Benjamin Hughes was facing them, wobbling unsteadily. He had his long hunting dirk in his left hand, and one of his gleaming push knives in his right.

"Come on, mister, put 'em down," one of the men repeated. Mr. Regnier was at the bottom of the stairs now, standing about fifteen feet behind Ben.

"Damn you to hell, damn you all!" Ben howled. As Roy inched down the stairs, clutching the wooden banister, he could see by the light of the gas lamp that the woodsman was weeping. He looked worse than the boy had ever seen him: ashen grey and haggard, with wild desperation and despair in his eyes.

"Look, I understand, okay? You just need to head back and sleep it off..."

"You don't understand! None of you understand!" Ben roared, and his next breath was almost a sob. "I killed her!"

"Settle down, now. You didn't kill anybody," the calmer of the two men said.

"I did, I killed her!" shouted the wild-eyed man. "I cut her open like a wild pig, _fwip_!" He gestured with his left hand, arcing the hunting knife through the air with such rapidity that the blade was a blur. "There was so much blood... blood everywhere..."

Roy realized with sickening dismay what Ben was talking about. Maes had told the story at least a dozen times: how he had been sitting on his foot, and refused to be born (an image made much more vivid by the drawings in Hawkeye-sensei's book about the human body); how his mother had bled to death trying to give birth; and how Ben had eviscerated her corpse to save the baby.

The two men obviously had no idea what the tinker's son meant. They exchanged looks of anxious exasperation.

"Just settle down," the first one repeated. "You just need—"

"_I killed her!_" The cry cut through the evening air with all the brutality of two decades' torment. Roy's pulse quickened and he scrambled down the remaining steps, shaking hands still clutching the railing.

"You didn't!" Roy cried out, unable to watch in silence. "You didn't kill her, you saved Maes' life."

Ben whirled around, and before anyone could react he drew back his right arm. Roy saw the motion and knew what was happening. Instinctively, just as Mr. Hughes had taught him to do when dodging a blow, he threw himself to the ground, absorbing the shock of impact into his hip. Even before he struck the street, the push knife embedded itself in the wall of the attorney's office, right where Roy's lungs had been a moment before.

There was a stunned silence that seemed to last a small eternity – though in reality it was no more than a second. Then Mr. Regnier scuffled forward, reaching out for the knife in Ben's left hand.

Roy scrambled to his feet, watching in horror as the teacher tried and failed to catch Ben by the wrist. The older man stumbled backwards drunkenly, brandishing his tool like the weapon that it was.

"I didn't!" he slurred, fixing Roy with a terrible look of misery. "I killed her!"

"No," Roy said softly, shaking his head. He wasn't afraid. He wanted to cry. "No, she bled to death 'cause the baby wouldn't come."

There was a strange gleam in the mossy eyes now, and Ben's face turned hypnotically from side to side. "_No..._" he breathed, stumbling forward. "No. Dad thought so. Gareth thought so. They couldn't find it in her neck. They couldn't find it in her arm."

"F-find what?" Roy faltered. The rapturous horror on the man's haggard face was terrible to behold.

"Her pulse," Ben hissed. "They couldn't find it."

"Because she was dead," Mr. Regnier said firmly, putting out his hand. "Give me the knife, now, sir. Everything's going to be okay."

"_No_." Ben didn't even look at him. He was staring at Roy, his eyes surprisingly clear despite the pall of alcohol that seemed to surround him. "I felt it. It was in her _leg_. I felt it, but I still cut her open. Like a pig. Like a fish."

He gestured with the knife, but this time the motion was exquisitely slow, and almost graphically precise. Roy felt as if he was going to vomit.

"You didn't," he whispered, hardly able to form the words. "It was just your imagination. She was dead."

"No, no, no, no, no," Ben chanted in a haunted singsong. "She was dying, but she wasn't dead. Not dead yet. I told them she was. I told them she was dead and then_ I killed her_. And nobody knows. Not Dad. Not Gareth. Not Maes. Ira. Ira knows. He saw the truth. Little ones always see the truth."

"Y-you had to!" Roy stammered. Mr Renier was inching slowly around behind Ben, so that he might have better leverage when he tried to grab the knife. Roy's eyes locked with the teacher, and he understood at once what was needed from him. He had to keep Ben talking. He had to keep him focused. "If you hadn't, she'd be dead anyway, and Maes would have died, too."

That thought made tears prickle in his eyes. He knew it was wicked, but he was _glad_ that Ben had done what he had. If he hadn't, Maes would have died before he was even born, and Roy would never met him, never been befriended by him, never learned how to have fun...

Ben stared at the boy for a moment, and Roy almost dared to hope that his words had pierced the haze of alcohol and torment. Then the man shook his head wildly so that his uncut hair flew in every direction.

"NO!" he bellowed. "I killed her, damn you! _I killed her_!"

He lunged forward, the knife arcing upward. At the critical moment, just before he could bring it down towards the youth, Mr. Regnier caught his wrist. Ben yelped in rage and confusion, and tried to pull away. He twisted so that he was face-to-face with the teacher, and his right hand went for Regnier's eyes. The former soldier ducked, but in that position he couldn't maintain his grip. Ben wrenched free and tried to strike out with the knife. Had Regnier's right arm not been long lost on some distant battlefield, it would have been sliced to the bone. As it was, the blade tore open his vest and snagged the shirt beneath. Regnier leaped out of the way with almost catlike agility, and Ben stumbled forward, almost pitching to the pavement.

The two other men were watching the spectacle, speechless. Roy knew how they felt. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe, or speak. All he could do was watch as Benjamin and Mr. Regnier circled each other like two wolves vying for dominance.

Ben tried to lunge forward, but Regnier was too quick for him. His handicap made it impossible for him to stop the drunken man, but he spun around, dropping to one knee and flinging out his other leg in a broad horizontal arc. The motion kicked Ben's legs out from under him, and in his instant of weakness, Regnier sprung onto his chest, ankles pressing down on the hunter's thighs. He plucked the knife from Ben's hand and threw it down the street.

"Roy, grab his arm!" Regnier shouted, using his one hand to pin down Ben's right wrist. Roy, suddenly able to move, ran forward and obeyed.

Ben thrashed for a moment, looking from one face to the other. Then his eyes found Roy's and for a terrible moment there was silence. All anger was drained from his face, and only an epiphany of dismay remained.

"Maes..." Ben choked out. "I saved Maes?"

Roy nodded fervently. "He would have died if you hadn't done it," he said.

Then, to the boy's horror, Ben began to sob, curling in on himself as far as the restraining bodies on top of him would allow. The paroxysms ripped through him, and rivulets of tears streamed down his cheeks. It was more terrifying than the anger, more terrifying than the horrible revelations. Roy had never felt so dreadful in all his young life as he did at that moment.

"You two go and get the doctor," Regnier said, glaring at the barman and his friend. "_Go!_"

There was a sound of their feet pounding up the street. Ben didn't seem to hear them: he was lost in his anguish, given over entirely to the misery of his secret demons. Unable to bear the sight any longer, Roy turned away.

It was only then that he saw Riza, standing at the top of the stairs with the light of the teacher's open door behind her. One small hand covered her mouth. She was white as a sheet, and her carmine eyes were enormous with horror.


	61. Self Worth

**Chapter 61: Self Worth**

Riza wouldn't talk about it. Roy tried to get her to, repeating over and over again that Ben had saved Maes' life. Mr. Regnier had tried, explaining that drink made men wild, so that they said and did things that they would never dream of saying or doing when sober. Doctor Bella had tried, talking about grief and sickness. Even kind Mr. Hughes had tried, coming by the school the following afternoon and taking her by the hand and leading her down a pretty lane lined in lilacs and wild roses, while he told her that Ben's momma had died a long time ago, too, and Ben was still very hurt and sad, because he had had to cut her open to save the baby inside of her. It didn't matter. Riza didn't want to talk about it.

Wednesday she could not bear the thought of facing him, but on Thursday, she did go to see Ben. He was sitting close to the campfire, wrapped in a quilt. His eyes were sunken deep into his head, and he was trembling violently, his skin a horrible shade of grey. Gareth sat nearby, stitching two pieces of kid leather together with one watchful eye on his older brother. Riza hesitated marginally, but the glover nodded at her, encouraging her to go forward.

"B-Ben?" she said hesitantly.

He didn't seem to hear her.

"Ben?" Riza tried again.

This time, empty eyes shifted and found her face with difficulty. "Riza..." he mumbled. His lips were dry and cracked, and as he looked at her his ashen cheeks flushed suddenly with shame. "I don't want you to come here. I don't want you to see me anymore. I..."

She put one small hand on his clammy cheek. "You're sad," she said. "You're sad and you're sick, and the drink makes it worse."

He snorted and turned away. "Even you?" he groused softly, concealing some sick emotion in his annoyance.

Riza didn't know what he meant. All she wanted was to let him know that she cared about him, that they were still friends despite his display; despite even the fact that he might have seriously hurt Roy. She sat down on the log next to him, pressing her shoulder against his comforter-swathed side.

"It hurts," she said. "It hurts that your momma is dead. Mine is dead, too."

Gareth tried to quell a pained gasp as he braced himself for some outburst. It was a subject, Riza guessed, that no one wanted to broach with Benjamin.

The huntsman turned to stare at her, and for an instant the expression in his green eyes was terrible. They swam with an insatiable agony and a deep, passionate fury that threatened to seethe forth and devour Riza...

Then Ben smiled sadly. "That's true," he said quietly. "She is, isn't she?"

Riza nodded. "It's been four years," she murmured. She didn't often speak about Momma, for it hurt too much, but though she was only nine, she knew that her friend was suffering. She had to do something – _anything_ to help ease his pain, even if it meant sharing it.

Ben let out a strange, strangled breath and straightened his legs. He spread his arms, opening the blanket like a pair of curtains. "Here," he said. Understanding what he wanted, Riza climbed into his lap as if she were much younger than she was. The cocoon of the quilt closed around her, and Ben hugged her close, resting his cheek on her hair.

"You still care, don't you?" he whispered hoarsely. "Even though you know what I did."

"You had to do it," Riza said, remembering what Roy had reiterated again and again. "You saved Maes." There was something more: something that her father's pupil had _not_ said. Something she didn't even think Roy knew that she knew. "You saved Maes, and he saved Roy, and Roy takes care of me. So I wouldn't have anybody to take care of me if you hadn't done it."

Ben pulled back a little, looking down into her eyes. "I never thought of that..." he breathed wonderingly. "I..."

Then suddenly he was weeping quietly, holding her close and rocking to and fro. Riza meekly let him do it, resting her head against his hard shoulder. They were still sitting like that when Roy came looking for her.

It was with reluctance that Riza left Ben, but Gareth was coaxing him to lie down in the caravan, and she knew that he needed his rest. She resolved that she would return again the following day, and the day after that and the day after that for as long as it took her dour companion to recover from his night of bitter catharsis. She didn't get the chance.

On Friday afternoon Roy came to walk her home from school, looking sad and apologetic. Word of Ben's performance – and his antics with the knives in particular – had spread. Corporal Selkirk had warned the tinkers that they had better move on, which Roy explained was a threat to arrest Ben if his family didn't leave town. So that morning, while Riza had been busy with a compass and protractor, drawing chords onto a piece of foolscap, her hurting friend had rolled quietly away. She wasn't sure how that made her feel.

Sometimes Riza felt so old. She looked at Alayne and Norma and Susan, and how carefree and happy they were. Even Fran and the other big girls seemed contented, but Riza was not. There were days when she couldn't even remember what it felt like to be happy. She just went to school, and did her academic utmost because she had no idea how else to behave, and came home and helped Roy with the housework, and went to bed and slept as best she could, and then got up the next day and started the cycle over again.

And so the months passed.

_discidium_

Mordred sat in his chair, staring down at his lap and feeling vaguely ill.

When the idea had first occurred to him, he had written it off as absurd. In the first place, it would be an incredibly intricate, complicated task. Secondly, he knew nothing at all of such things. Last of all, no alchemist had ever done something like this before.

It was that last point that had gnawed at the edge of his sanity until he became convinced that that was precisely why he _did_ have to do it. He had always been an iconoclast at heart: raging out against the banality of his hometown by studying alchemy, raging out against the banality of alchemy by turning it to new and awe-inspiring applications... why should this be any different?

Besides, it was the only way to ensure that his research would remain safe. He couldn't trust it to books, or monuments, or any of the conventional means of concealing alchemical information. His art was too deadly, too powerful, to chance loss or abuse. He wasn't certain which would be worse: to have his life's work vanish into nothingness, or to have it fall into the wrong hands and become a tool for evil. In any case, it _had_ to be protected. His code was good. Good? It was exquisite. But codes by their very nature could be broken – _had_ to be breakable. The only way to ensure that his research would remain safe, would outlive him and one day be passed to a worthy recipient, was to entrust it to someone. And there was only one person left in the world who he knew he could trust.

It was perfect. On her back, hidden from her view forever, there would be no chance of Riza ever deciphering it herself. He knew she was a clever child. Even if she knew nothing about alchemy, she might still one day unravel the enigma, and he didn't want that. That was too great a burden for her slender little shoulders. If she could not see it, she could not understand it. On her back, it would be hidden always, unless she chose to reveal it, and she was an intelligent girl. She could be taught. He could coach her, teach her what kind of man, what kind of alchemist, would be worthy of the knowledge.

Time was of the essence. Mordred knew that he didn't have many years left. He was worn down and exhausted, and he was coughing again. Since his brush with the chickenpox that his daughter had contracted at that disease-riddled school, he had been ill no less than seven times. He was dimly aware that the recurrent infections were eating away at his soft, sensitive lung tissue, for each time recovery was harder and the hollow hacking lasted longer. At one time, he would have gone to Bella – no, to Doctor Greyson – and asked her advice. That was impossible now. All his life she had been his one constant: his eternally faithful friend no matter how poorly he treated her or how many times he disregarded her needs and feelings in favour of his own. But he had driven her away, and he didn't want to subject her to his unwanted presence.

In any case, there was little enough she could do. The infections would continue to worsen, until one day they carried him off, and before that happened he had to complete his work. The difficulty was that tattooing was a complex and delicate task, and he lacked the skill to carry it out properly... which brought his attention back to his lap.

His trousers were on the other side of the room, for he had been yet again attempting to practice. His tool was absurdly simple: a slender sewing needle, its shaft wrapped in ink-soaked thread. Tattooing was more or less the realm of criminals and convicts, and this was the method that, according to the books he had managed to obtain on the subject, was used in Amestrian prisons. It was painstakingly slow, piercing the skin again and again, leaving a trace of ink behind each time. His thighs were covered with botched attempts. Many had run, some had festered, others were already beginning to fade. It was unacceptable.

One book mentioned an ancient Xingese art called _irezumi_: a tribal technique that produced beautiful, intricate tattoos in jewel-like colours that did not fade, no matter how the years passed. If only he could unlock the secrets of these practitioners... but the only way to do that was to travel to Xing.

Then it had occurred to him. There were communities on the eastern border of Amestris where Xingese immigrants congregated. Bella had called them "laundering towns", and if there was an _irezumi _artist anywhere in Amestris, Mordred would surely find him in such a place. Sometime between the moment he had undressed this morning, and the moment when he had tossed away the ink-soaked needle in disgust, the alchemist had made up his mind that he would make a pilgrimage to the east. Roy Mustang was fourteen now, and old enough to run the house for a couple of weeks. The spring thaw was here, and as soon as arrangements for the journey could be made, Mordred had decided that he would depart.

His destination was, of course, the only such community of which he had ever heard: Grishmore, the town where his pupil's long-dead parents had lived.

_discidium_

"He just _left_ you?" Bella said incredulously, almost dropping the pan of potato cakes as she turned from the stove.

Riza bit her lip and looked down into her lap, but Roy nodded.

"It's very important," he said. "Sensei told me it has to do with his research. He'll be back."

"All the same..." the physician said, frowning disapprovingly. "I want you two to stay here while he's gone. We'll all walk over to the house after supper, and get whatever you need for the night."

"Sensei wouldn't like that," Roy told her hesitantly. "Besides, I'm old enough to take care of things for a little while."

Those were the alchemist's words, and the youth found them oddly irksome. Sometimes he felt like he _did_ run the whole house, whether Hawkeye was around or not, and no matter how he tried he never even received a curt "well done" for all of his hard work.

Doctor Bella was watching him thoughtfully. "I suppose you _are_ fourteen, now," she said disconsolately.

"Old enough to enrol in one of the military academies if I had parental permission," Roy pointed out. It was something that Mr. Regnier had said on the occasion of his birthday. It was oddly heartening to know that, even if he was still two years shy of being able to enlist like Maes, at least he was old enough to start studying to be an officer if he wanted to. He rather thought that if he did join the military he would only do so as a State Alchemist, but the knowledge that this was not his only option made him feel less like a useless and disenfranchised child.

Doctor Bella, however, didn't seem pleased at all. "You don't _want_ to, do you, Roy?" she asked abruptly. "Not so soon."

"No..." he said, a little taken aback by her tone. "I just meant that I _could_."

"Good." The woman looked relieved. She scooped a cake onto each plate and removed the calico cap from a pot of tomato preserves for Riza.

"Besides," Roy mumbled, reaching for the sour cream instead; "I don't have parents to give permission."

The doctor regarded him sadly, and Roy felt suddenly uncomfortable. He had never before voiced his feelings about this particular deficiency in his life.

"Parents aren't..." Doctor Bella hesitated, carefully weighing her next words. "You're not worth any less because you don't have parents."

Roy stared down at his food, worrying the piece of roast pork with the edge of his spoon. He would never presume to contradict the doctor, but they both knew that wasn't true. As an orphan he was, quite literally nothing. The only identity he had was as Hawkeye-sensei's pupil, and even then he was only a charity case, who had paid no apprenticeship dues and who was beholden even for the clothes on his back and the food in his belly. That thought was enough to send all his hard-earned self-respect – nurtured in recent years by the doctor and Mr. Regnier, his growing proficiency in alchemy, and above all by Maes Hughes – ebbing away in an instant.

As if she sensed his sudden, corrosive self doubt, Doctor Bella smiled. "Why, just look at how well you look after Riza!" she said sunnily. "I don't know any big brother who could do better. Indeed, there aren't many grown men who could manage as well. I'm certainly very proud of you."

The simple, honest words of praise were like autumn rain on parched earth: Roy's affirmation-starved soul drank them in, but then they vanished within, leaving no marked difference to the cracked and pitted surface.

"Where did I come from?" Roy asked, unable to help himself.

"You were born in Youswell," Bella replied; "but as far as we can tell you grew up in a little town called Grishmore. Your parents died in a house fire."

Roy shivered. "I remember," he murmured. "The fire, I mean. But I don't remember them. Who am I?"

"You're Roy Mustang, of course," she said.

"But who _am_ I?" Roy repeated, unable to quite articulate the enormity of this moment of adolescent insecurity. "How can I know, who I am if I have no idea what kind of people my parents were?"

"Our parents don't define us," said the doctor. "Their actions and choices don't make us who we are: that's something we need to decide for ourselves. It doesn't matter where we came from. All that's really important is what we do."

Roy wanted to believe her, but he couldn't quite do it. He gnawed his lip and tried to smile, failing pathetically.

"Whatever kind of people your parents were," said Doctor Bella; "I know they would be proud of the young man you've become, just as your sensei and I are proud."

This time, the tiny tug at the corner of Roy's mouth was genuine. Sensei was proud of him?

"Would my momma be proud of me?" Riza whispered in a tiny voice.

"Of course she would," Roy said without even thinking.

"Yes, she would," agreed Doctor Bella. "You're a beautiful girl, and quite the brightest child I've ever known."

Roy felt a tiny stab of competitive envy. The doctor had never seen _him_ balance complex chemical equations so rapidly that his nib ripped tiny holes in the paper. But of course, that was a highly specialized task: when he came to reading and writing he knew he was backwards by any standards. Riza would be able to take her skills and apply them to whatever she wished, while he would never be good for anything but alchemy.

Perhaps she sense that neither child was cheering up despite her efforts to bolster their self esteem, for Doctor Bella rose and stepped away from her untouched supper.

"Speaking of parents," she said merrily, as if the innocuous noun was all that she recalled of the conversation; "who do you suppose has had a baby?"

Neither Roy nor Riza could hazard a guess. The Doctor plucked an envelope from the spice rack and bent to show the children the two photographs enclosed with the letter.

"Sarah!" Roy said excitedly. In the first picture, the one-time intern stood smiling next to her blond husband. Cradled in Sarah's arms was a baby dressed in white linen. The new mother looked positively radiant.

"That's right," said Doctor Bella. "Careful, don't smudge it. It's a baby girl."

"What's her name?" asked Riza, transfixed by the image.

"Wendy," Bella said. Then she frowned. "No, that isn't it." She consulted the letter. "Winry. Eight pounds eleven ounces."

She uncovered the next picture, which showed two babies lying together on a fleece rug. Chubby little Winry was kicking her feet in the air, and her tiny fist was bopping the nose of the other infant, who was smaller but looked a little older. The baby was grimacing enormously in the wake of the assault. Unlike Sarah's baby, who was practically bald, this one sported a thick shock of golden hair, with a rebellious little cowlick sticking up from the small forehead.

"Who's that?" Roy asked, pointing at the victimized child.

"Their neighbour's son," said the doctor. "From the look of things, little Winry has quite a right hook."

Roy laughed, feeling his tension dissipating. The pictures worked their magic, for soon all three of them were eating contentedly. When the meal was finished they moved upstairs. Bella sat with Riza on the sofa, cuddling the girl – at ten no longer "little" – while she read aloud to her from another novel by Riza's new favourite, Currer Bell. Roy, tired as always from the chronic sleep debt that his growing body carried, curled up in the armchair and let his mind wander.


	62. The Great Art

**Chapter 62: The Great Art**

The first stop on Mordred's pilgrimage was East City. There, he stopped at the office of the barrister entrusted with his investments. His intent had been to take out a bond secured against next quarter's interest, for thought not a worldly man Mordred was not stupid. Tradesmen did not freely give their secrets: if he wished to be taught how to tattoo his beautiful array onto a young girl's back, he would have to pay. His botched attempts on his own flesh had proved that much.

Getting the money was not, however, as simple as he had expected. The barrister – a plump, jovial man who smelled of black beer and deer sausage – had attempted to explain. It seemed (this was the first Mordred had ever heard of it) that most of the Hawkeye capital was tied up in southern wool. With the war against Aerugo, there was no telling what the revenues from the investments might be in the coming months. So the Company – by which the man meant himself and his bowlegged clerk – could not release any monies above twenty thousand _sens_ on such collateral.

Mordred, who had not even been certain that twice that sum would be enough, had tried to argue. Military uniforms were made of that very wool, and in war uniforms were almost as expendable as ammunition. Therefore demand would continue to rise. Also, if the conflict _did_ lead to loss of herds, supply would fall. That made prices rise, too, didn't it? But no, it seemed his money wasn't really in wool: it was in sheep. There was just no way to guarantee coming revenues.

In the end, after a lot of squabbling, they had settled on a bond secured against the principle, rather than the interest. He had three months to repay it: if he didn't use any of the borrowed money, he could return it on his way home. Whatever he didn't spend could be put towards paying off the debt, and if the barrister had to, he'd claim some of the money. So, with six hundred thousand _sens_ – seventy-five percent of his carefully hoarded inheritance – in a nondescript folio, Mordred had boarded the train again, headed east.

Upon arriving in Grishmore (by horse and cart, for the railway did not stretch so far to the east), he had attracted a great deal of attention. Strangers – blond strangers, at least – were an uncommon sight in this remote hamlet. There were a few Amestrian locals, of course, but the vast majority of the residents were Xingese or members of an indeterminate half-caste with a strange blend of multinational features.

The community was overcrowded and reeked of poverty. Ragged men chewed on crude clay pipes and squabbled in the streets. Gaunt, haunted woman who had come west seeking a better life, and had not found it, gossiped in clipped Xingese. Naked children and half-naked adolescents chased one another about like ravenous pups.

Finding someone whose broken Amestrian the alchemist could understand had proved challenging, but once he did it was easy to find the man he sought. There was indeed an _irezumi_ master in the village, and he had after a great deal of bribery and begging, been led to him.

The tattoo artist resided in an underground hovel. The root cellar of a burned-out farm house had been re-roofed, and it served as home and studio for the grizzled old practitioner. Heavy and ornate but threadbare rugs hung from the ceiling, dividing the single dank room into living space and work space.

The _irezumi_ master was a white-haired man with the sallow skin and sloping eyes of the Xingese. He regarded the alchemist silently as Mordred's guide introduced the stranger in twanging foreign syllables. Then the old man waved the escort out. Left alone with his guest, he stroked his trailing moustache.

"What do you want?" he asked. His Amestrian was very good, Mordred realized abruptly.

"I want to learn your art," the alchemist answered. Then he went on, attempting to communicate his desire to learn the techniques necessary to create a perfect and intricate tattoo that would be impervious to the ravages of time.

When he was finished, the old man clicked his tongue and shook his head. "It takes many years of study," he said, rolling up the sleeve of his tattered robe to reveal an intricate pattern running up his forearm in bright, rich colours. The sight very nearly made Mordred's mouth water. The delicacy of the design, the fidelity of the image: it was everything he had envisioned. "The student does not seek perfection without struggling through imperfection first. You cannot create such beauty without commitment."

"I don't want beauty," Mordred said. "I want function."

He had not, of course, brought his true draft. Knowing that whoever he went to would want some explanation, and not interested in learning anything he didn't need for his specific task, Mordred had drawn a decoy. It had all the elements of the original: broad, sweeping contours, delicate arcs, neat gothic lettering... but the transmutation circle was the one he used for trimming the back hedge, and the words came from G.G. Gunhold's _Collected Works for Children_.

He unrolled this dummy drawing and showed it to the man.

"I want to be able to tattoo _that_," he said. "In black. It must not fade. It cannot run. I want the image to outlive its bearer. Teach me what I must know in order to do this."

The _irezumi_ master took the paper in his wizened hands and studied it critically. Then he looked at Mordred, and for a moment the younger man felt that his soul was being pierced by a blinding light that denuded his true self.

"You are an alchemist," he said thoughtfully. Then he shook his head, pointing at the drawing. "Criminals can do this with a needle and thread. You do not need me."

"Yes, I do," Mordred said. "I've already tried it that way."

Fear that the man would reject his supplication overrode good sense and the basic desire for dignity. Before he fully realized what he was doing, Mordred had unbuttoned his trousers and let them fall about his ankles, revealing the marks on his legs: the countless failed attempts. There were places where the skin puckered, and fuzzy starbursts of ink spread out from the punctures. There were a few lesions still weeping pus from infected abrasions. Even the best attempts were fading.

To his horror, the old man threw back his head and laughed.

"You want me to teach you better than _that_?" he mocked. Then he spat disdainfully onto the floor. "Get out."

"But—"

"You are an alchemist."

Mordred's eyes narrowed. What was the man's point? "Yes..."

"In my country, we call it _rentanjutsu_. It is an art, yes?"

"And a science," Mordred said defensively.

"But to you, it is the Great Art."

Reluctantly, the alchemist nodded. He had the eerie feeling that he was walking straight into a trap.

"Alchemy is your Great Art. _Irezumi _is mine. It is not a plaything, it is not a joke. It is creation and beauty and purity. Immortality, for my work will live on long after I am dead. _Irezumi_ is not the pastime of criminals. It is my Great Art." The man's black eyes fixed on Mordred, burning with pride and well-controlled fury. "If you want to debase my art, then seek a prison, and have the filth there teach you how to mutilate yourself."

Mordred had not expected such ridicule. He stood there, momentarily cowed, until his own passion kindled itself.

"No!" he snarled. "You say your art is immortal. I am trying to immortalize mine, too. That design holds all of my secrets. I need to preserve it. It must be guarded. It must be kept safe."

"Secrets should be given to apprentices," the old man said. "That is why we tolerate their foolishness and their questions. So that one day we can pass on our knowledge."

This gave Mordred pause. How could he explain that he did not know if he could trust his apprentice? Roy Mustang was a brilliant young alchemist, but what kind of a person was he? What kind of a man would he become? Would he be strong enough to be trusted with this secret? Could he resist the temptation to twist the power to evil? How could Mordred be sure _how_ he would use it?

"I have no apprentice," he lied.

The old man snorted. "Then you are a fool."

"Yes," said Mordred. At this point he was willing to admit to anything, if only the man would consent to teach him. "I'm a fool. But this is important to me. It must be done right. These..." He gestured at his mutilated legs. "These are obscene. I want to create a thing of majesty."

There was a silence. The man seemed deep in thought.

"This tattoo. Where will you put it?"

"On a girl," said Mordred. "A young woman. My daughter."

The man stroked his moustache. "I had a daughter," he said.

"I... see," Mordred said hesitantly. He wasn't sure what relevance this could possibly have on the issue at hand.

"When she was sixteen, we crossed the desert. She gave me the resolve to go on. She forced me to survive the journey."

Mordred shifted his weight from one foot to the other. What was the man's point?

"When we arrived here, I gave her a gift. A tigress, from shoulder to shoulder." His hands mimed a woman's back in the air. "It was exquisite."

"Was?" Mordred said softly.

The _irezumi _master shrugged. "She is gone. She took an Amestrian man and left me many years ago. Beware of daughters," he said. "They have minds of their own."

"Riza isn't like that," Mordred argued. "I can trust her. I can teach her. She will protect my research – if you will help me to give it to her."

"If you bring her here, I will mark her for you," the man said.

Inspiration struck. "Would you have let someone else tattoo your child?" Mordred asked brusquely.

Silence. It seemed that it would never end. Then the old man inclined his head.

"Very well," he said. "I will teach you, alchemist. I will teach you what you wish to know, but I have my price."

This, Mordred had expected. A triumphant smile tugged at his thin lips.

_discidium_

Three weeks had passed, and there was no word from Hawkeye-sensei. Roy didn't really mind. Without the alchemist to look over his shoulder or send him on unnecessary errands, or assign pointless readings, he had a lot more time to himself. Once he sent Riza off to school in the morning, and saw to the usual chores, he was able to settle down and study at his own pace. Furthermore, without sensei to punish him for experimenting, he finally had the opportunity to try some of the more complex transmutation circles in the dusty old texts. He could eat dinner when he wished to, and in the afternoons he could lie down and sleep a little, which was a luxury in which his weary young body revelled.

Tonight, Riza was settled in bed, and Roy was in the study. He had spent most of the evening working on stoichiometry problems, whipping through them as quickly as his brain would allow. He was trying to perfect the art of performing such calculations without the benefit of pen and paper, for an alchemist needed to understand the equivalency of any given reaction without hesitation. He was quite good at it, too.

Now, however, he had another mission. He didn't know when his master would return from his journey, but when he did he would expect the house to be clean. Roy had been keeping up with the usual chores with no difficulty at all: after all, he was only cleaning up after two people now, and not three. Besides, he and Riza were inherently tidy individuals, unlike Hawkeye-sensei. All Roy really had to worry about when it came to Riza was her laundry. There was only one room that he hadn't really touched yet, and that was the study.

He started with the books that were scattered across the room. Though he was careful to replace any one that he touched, the others were strewn about in chaos. It took almost an hour to re-shelve everything properly, for he had to make room for his sensei's new books, which had never been properly put away. He wasn't how to file them: where did books on ink, human growth, and first-hand accounts of convicts fit into a wall of scientific texts? In the end, with a little shuffling, he gave them a section all their own, which he hoped would not displease the alchemist.

Then there was the dusting. The windows had been washed last Saturday: Riza had done the insides, and he the outsides. He swept the floor and did his best to organize the assorted papers. He filed away his teacher's notebooks, and put away the scrolls that littered the floor around the desk. He gathered split nibs and empty inkwells, and found half of a mouldering cheese sandwich under the blotter. These he took out to the midden, undaunted by the darkness.

Roy pushed the chair into place, plumped the cushions on the settee, and surveyed his handiwork with quiet pride. The room looked better than he ever remembered it looking. Everything was neat and organized, and without the heaps of detritus the grand room looked almost homey.

Then something caught his eye. There was a sheet of parchment behind the shelf by the window: he could see its corner. Curious, he pulled it out. It was a large square, and on it was the strangest array he had ever seen.

There was a simple transmutation circle at its centre: the symbols for earth and air intersecting beneath the symbol for fire. At the top of the circle was a flame that looked almost like an eye. At the bottom slithered a black salamander. Surrounding this image, however, was a complex conglomeration of Latin and geometric shapes. A broad, black outline of a chalice seemed to support the salamander sigil, and it, too, was surrounded with the twisting phrases. Roy was hardly fluent in Latin, but he recognized a few words: _flammis_, which was "flames"; _culpa_, "guilt"; and in the very bottom, right-hand corner, _lupus_, which was "wolf".

It didn't make any sense. Was this array even useable? Roy spread the paper carefully on the rug, planting his hands on the central circle. He could feel power tingling beneath them, but without any idea how the array was meant to be used...

"Roy?"

The boy jumped, conscious that he had been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. He whirled around onto his heels. Riza stood in the doorway, her nightdress rippling around her ankles and her carmine eyes dark and moist with sleep and unshed tears.

"Riza," he exhaled, calming himself as best he could. "What's wrong?"

She padded barefoot across the floor and knelt down beside him. "Is Papa ever coming back?" she asked in a tiny voice.

Roy reached to pet her hair. "Of course he is," he promised. "His research must be taking longer than he thought, that's all."

"Oh." She looked at her hands, which were folded in her lap. "I thought maybe... maybe he'd left us forever."

He didn't know what to say to this. He wanted to cheer her up: he knew she wasn't happy. "I'll tell you what," he said. "I bought some apple strudels today. I was meaning to save them for breakfast, but if you like we could share one now."

Riza favoured him with a tiny smile. "I'd like that," she said.

"Good," Roy said. "You go to the kitchen, and I'll be right there."

Riza nodded and slipped from the room. Left alone, Roy hastily replaced the strange array behind the shelf. There was something about it that frightened him...

_discidium_

It was, indeed, taking much longer than Mordred had expected. The _irezumi_ master had his own ideas about the learning process. First he taught the alchemist how to carve the needles out of thin stalks of bamboo, neither too thick nor too slender. Then there were lessons in the mixing of inks – not only black, but every colour imaginable. When Mordred reiterated that the tattoo he wanted to create was monochromatic, the old man slapped him as if he were nothing more than an impudent apprentice, and then sent him off to buy bread. Yet Mordred gritted his teeth against the absurdity, the tedium and the humiliation. He was determined to learn enough to create the perfect tattoo.

After a fortnight, he was finally allowed to practice – on his own flesh, of course. It took two more weeks for his hands to adjust to the delicacy of the task, and gain any kind of speed with the stylus-like bamboo needle, but it was obvious how this technique was superior to the one he had tried before. At the end of his fifth week in the village, both he and the old man were satisfied with the result.

The day came at last when Mordred was ready to take his leave. He packed up his inks and the needles he had made with such care. His clothes were filthy and his jaw unshaved, but he did not care. He would be home soon enough, and he carried with him the knowledge and the tools needed to ensure the preservation of his legacy. All that remained was to wait until the girl was large enough, for if he marked her too soon, her growth would stretch and distort the image. That could not be allowed to happen.

As he was preparing to leave the hovel, a man came in. He was about Mordred's age, with the strong, distinctive features of a full-blood Xingese. There was something about his pointed chin and charcoal-coloured eyes that made the alchemist uneasy: it was as if he had seen this man in some forgotten lifetime.

The _irezumi_ master, sitting on his cushion, motioned to the newcomer. The man sat cross-legged beside him, and the tattoo artist crooked his finger at Mordred.

"It is time," he said.

"For what?" Mordred asked.

"I told you that I had my price," the man said. He indicated the stranger. "This is Mu Tzang Duong. He will help us decide what my tutelage is worth."

The younger man bowed his head at Mordred.

"I'll give you forty thousand _sens_," said the alchemist. He had half hoped that the man had forgotten that they had agreed there should be payment.

"No."

It was the stranger who spoke. Mordred looked at him in surprise. "Forgive me, Mr. Duong, but what is your part in this negotiation?"

The man did not answer him. The _irezumi _master shook his head. "Duong is his given name. We honour our families above ourselves. As Duong has no family left, this is of special importance to him."

"You have no family left? I am sorry to hear that," Mordred said coolly. Once again, he had the feeling that he was being put through some strange, unnecessary acrobatic exercise, and he resented it.

"He came from Xing to join his brother ten years ago," the _irezumi_ master said sagely. "But when he crossed the desert, he found his brother and his wife were dead, and their child taken away by your Amestrian military. He has no family, but it is his wish to ensure that those who _do_ are able to provide for them. That is why he is here."

"Forgive me, but I don't understand," Mordred said impatiently. "And since I really do have to be getting back to _my_ family..."

"_Shizuka ni shite!_" the _irezumi_ master snapped. Mordred knew this phrase all too well after spending five weeks in his company: it was the _Xingese_ equivalent of "shut up". He pursed his lips, once again feeling like a recalcitrant pupil. His tattoo, he reminded himself. Protecting his life's work. That was more important than anything.

"Your military would deport us," Mu Tzang said. His accent was thicker than that of the old man, but his diction was good. "Six hundred _sens_ will buy a visa for a man and his wife and his children, so that they need not fear this. But your officials are corrupt. They take bribes, and those who are able to pay these are the ones who receive their papers. Our people are poor. There is no money for the visas, much less the bribes."

Mordred was about to protest that this was hardly his problem, but then he thought better of it. The _irezumi _master turned to Mu Tzang.

"How many men in our village?" he asked.

"Seven hundred and ninety-two," the man replied. "A thousand _sens_ a head, and none would be left behind. That is our price."

Mordred could not suppress the choking noise that sprung to his throat. Thieves! Scoundrels! They knew how much money he carried: they must have searched his belongings. Now they were naming a price just below that amount, determined to rob him of everything! He didn't stop to wonder if this pitiable tale of poverty and visas was true: it didn't matter! He would never give in to these unreasonable demands!

But he was trapped, he realized: isolated in a distant village full of these foreigners. They could kill him and take his money if they wanted to. And after all, what did the money matter? He had work to do. He had to survive long enough to leave his research in his daughter's hands. No. On his daughter's back.

He took the folio of banknotes, and hurled it at the smirking stranger. "Take it!" he snarled. "Take it and be damned!"

Then without waiting to be dismissed, he stormed from the hovel. All the long ride back to civilization – to the little cattle-town where the railroad began – he was fuming with indignation... but once he was settled on the train, rattling back towards Hamner, he could not suppress his elation. Yes, he had lost the money, but the important thing was, he would now succeed. He would be able to preserve his legacy, to protect his research, to secure his life's work.

If only the wretched child would just _grow up_!

_discidium_

Riza woke up drenched in perspiration, her heart hammering in her chest and her pulse racing madly. They were chasing her! They wanted something... something she had, and couldn't give them! She didn't know what, exactly, they wanted, or even who they were, but the dream was still gripping her.

She hugged her knees to her chest and whimpered softly. Papa had been gone for almost six weeks, now. Though the house was quieter and her own life more peaceful without him, she was oddly uneasy. He was, after all, still her father – and the last family she had left. His presence, though daunting and even terrifying at times, was the one part of her world that had always been constant. Papa had always been there, and now... he wasn't.

Riza was shivering, and she was frightened. She was only ten years old, and despite her attempts to be a big girl, and do well in school, and be everything that her father wanted her to be, she was still a child. A child, tonight, who was in the grips of a vague nightmare, and alone in the house, save for a fourteen-year-old boy.

A fourteen-year-old boy. Roy.

Riza got out of bed, the floorboards cool beneath her bare feet. She slipped into the corridor and then into Roy's room. Her father's pupil was sprawled out on his belly, his breath coming in soft sighs as he enjoyed his coveted slumber. Riza tiptoed across the floor, her sharp eyes picking out his outline in the dark. Timidly, she put out her hand and touched his arm. Roy snorted and stirred, but then fell still again, fast asleep.

"Roy?" Riza whispered. "_Roy_?"

With a grumbling moan, he rolled onto his side. "'Za?" he grunted.

"I... I had a bad dream," she confessed softly. "Can I... could you..."

Wordlessly, he raised his left arm, lifting his blankets. With his right hand, he patted the mattress next to his hip. Riza understood, and a tiny, tremulous smile touched her lips.

"Thank you," she breathed, climbing onto the bed and lying down next to him. He lowered the bedclothes, and put a comforting arm around her back.

"It's okay," he said, just as he had when she was little and had suffered from all-consuming night terrors. "It was just a bad dream."

Riza nestled next to the boy who was dearer to her than any brother ever could be. She could already feel sleep tugging at her mind, beckoning her back down into dewy slumber. "Not anymore," she mumbled softly, just before drifting off entirely.

The house didn't seem quite so empty with Roy's strong, comforting presence beside her.


	63. The Truth Will Out

**Chapter 63: The Truth Will Out**

The train rolled into Hamner just after six in the morning. Mordred got stiffly up from the hard third-class seat, yawned and stretched, and then collected his battered carpet bag full of soiled linen. The walk home was cold and dreary, for the sun was still well below the horizon and the sky was a bleak steel grey. At last the house rose up before him, and Mordred sighed softly. He had never expected the sight of home to be such a welcome one.

Once inside, he dropped his baggage in the corridor (Roy could take care of it later) and mounted the stairs. His thighs still ached dully from weeks of being pierced and violated by various needles, but he had to admit that they were, at least, less unsightly than they had been before his departure. The _irezumi_ master had taught him how to heal the wounds he had inflicted in his ignorance. Furthermore – and Mordred was still irked by this – he had demanded that he repair each and every botched attempt, transforming the clumsy stick-and-poke blemishes into proper tattoos. Mordred, who didn't give a damn how his legs looked, had chafed at this, but in retrospect it had been a good exercise. The downside was that his legs were now covered in lotuses, stallions, dizzying spirals and leering frogs, in addition to the alchemical symbols, transmutation circles, and excerpts from Gunhold's godawful book. For the first time, he was glad Lian was gone. He wouldn't like to have to explain those markings to anyone.

The bad step went off like a gunshot, and Mordred flinched. He was tired and hungry and his head ached. The first priority was sleep... but before he could bear to do that, he had to bathe. He stank of sweat and blood and Xingese immigrants.

He stripped off his clothes in the dark corridor, depositing them into the hamper. Then he slipped into the bathroom, turned up the gas and filled the tub.

Half an hour later, feeling much better, he slipped a long, threadbare nightshirt over his head. In an odd moment of paternal sentimentality, he turned from his seductively beckoning bed and crossed the corridor to look in on Riza.

Her bed was empty, the sheets rumpled at the blankets in disarray. For a moment, Mordred was frightened. Then annoyance set in. That meddling Greyson woman, she'd taken the children from the house! If he weren't so tired, he'd go marching over there at once and give the old maid a piece of his mind. He stomped towards Roy Mustang's room, to confirm that his apprentice was gone as well. As he opened the door, he realized abruptly that he had misjudged the situation.

His daughter and the boy were in bed _together_, arms twined around one another, the gold hair mingling with the black on the pillowcase. Mordred stared in disbelief. Good god, they were only _children_! Riza was hardly out of pinafores, and the boy was only fourteen. What on earth were they doing in such a position?

With a flick of his wrist, he flooded the room in gas light. The sleeping youngsters didn't even stir. Mordred moved closer, frowning down at them. They appeared to be fully clad in their nightclothes, he noted, and realized with a flood of relief that whatever Mustang's intentions had been, they were not sexual. Still, seeing the two of them lying like that, pressed together in the narrow bed was disconcerting. He had never before given the matter much thought, but the two of them were entirely too friendly with one another. They behaved more like siblings than they had any right to. Riza was his daughter, and Roy was his student. Didn't they see the distinction?

He reached down and took hold of Riza's slender shoulder, shaking her firmly.

"Wake up," he commanded.

With a startled gasp, Roy's eyes flew open. They searched the room frantically, lighting upon Mordred's face. The boy smiled in relief. "Sensei!" he said, his voice hoarse from slumber. "You're home!"

"Home?" Riza mumbled. Then she, too, was awake. She made a tiny, startled sound. "Papa!"

She sat up, pulling away from him and pressing her back to the headboard. She looked at Roy's happy expression, and then at her father's grim frown.

"What do you two think you're doing?" he demanded sternly.

"We were sleeping, sensei," Roy said, scrubbing his eyes. "It's not morning yet."

"I can see you were sleeping," Mordred said tersely. "Why are you both in here?"

Riza flushed deeply, but Roy spoke up, pushing himself onto his elbows. "I asked her to, sensei," he said. "I was cold."

"_Cold_."

"N-no, Papa," Riza stammered. "It was me, I..."

"I was cold," Roy repeated firmly.

Mordred was tired and cross, and his mind wasn't working properly. His hand darted out, boxing Roy's left ear soundly. Riza muffled a cry of dismay, and the boy flinched, stoically silent.

"So this is what you do in my absence?" Mordred demanded. "Invite my daughter into your bed?"

He was dimly aware that the phrasing was unjust. After all, it wasn't as if the boy had had designs upon her virtue: Riza was too _young_ to have any virtue to protect! Still, the idea that the two of them had obviously forged some mysterious connection that went beyond the formality that ought to attend a boy and his master's daughter was inherently infuriating!

It didn't even occur to the alchemist that the two of them had been living as siblings for seven years, now. In his current state of exhaustion, their familiarity seemed to have all the marks of a conspiracy. A conspiracy, perhaps, to steal his secrets. Maybe Riza knew what he was planning. Maybe the boy had coerced her into some promise of handing his life's work to her... if he hadn't yet, he would soon. When Riza was old enough, when the tattoo was finished... then the boy would entice her to his bed and steal it from her...

He had to nip this in the bud. He had to kill the viper before it had a chance to strike. This camaraderie could not be allowed to continue. Even if their motives were innocent now, he had to ensure that the temptation never arose. The only way to ensure that was with firm discipline.

"Get up!" he ordered. "My clothes need washing, and there's a bag by the front door, too. I'm going to bed, and I expect a decent breakfast when I get up, do you hear me? And _you_," he said, taking Riza's arm and hauling her out of the bed so quickly that she stumbled; "to your own room! If I catch you two in the same bed again, you'll wish you'd never been born. Understood?"

Neither brat looked like they understood, but both had the good sense to nod. That was enough for Mordred. He didn't give a damn if they saw the sense in his rulings, so long as they obeyed without question.

Casting a worried glance at Roy, Riza hurried from the room. As Mordred stomped off towards the long-coveted comfort of his nice, soft bed, he saw the boy scrambling to dress himself, pausing intermittently to stifle an enormous yawn.

_discidium_

May came, and with it, thankfully, the tinkers. Riza was so relieved: she had been afraid that Ben and his family might not be allowed to return after what had transpired the previous year. Her friend looked more haggard and sickly than ever, and Gareth was never more than ten paces away, persistently plying him with warm broth or cool water or a piece of fresh fruit. Benjamin seemed to chafe at these ministrations, but he accepted them meekly. Riza was glad that he had a good brother who would take care of him.

The family was still down to four men, for Ira and Maes were in the military and Eli was busy with state contracts. Without his friend, Roy had little interest in visiting the campsite – though he still did on occasion. It was Riza who spent all of her free time there that spring.

She was glad to get away from the house. Since Papa's return from his research trip, the atmosphere at home had been oppressive. Riza still didn't understand what she and Roy had done wrong when they had spent the night together, but whatever it was had clearly angered Papa. He watched the two of them with a hawk's scrutiny, frequently scolding if they chanced to laugh together, or if they touched each other. Roy was uncomfortable with this strange new attention, but Riza was in agony. She wanted to be the child that her father desired, and it was obvious that fraternizing with Roy was unacceptable. Where he was content to be aloof when the alchemist was watching, she found herself attempting to maintain the distance even when they were unobserved.

She felt bad, behaving that way, for Roy had had a rough time of it lately. Papa had been furious – absolutely _furious_ when he head discovered that his pupil had taken it upon himself to clean the study. He had shouted at the poor boy for hours, saying all manner of terrible things about gutter brats and beggars and thieves. Riza, cowering in the kitchen, had heard the sound of fierce blows, and then another sharp, whistling, repetitive noise that echoed out over and over again. That evening, Roy had refused to meet her eyes, and had taken his dinner standing up.

He was working harder than ever on his lessons. Often Riza would find him in the back yard, practicing some transmutation over and over again until his face was grey and his brow slick with sweat, and his limbs shook with violent enervation. Once or twice, he had even vomited into the midden after such sessions. There was a black determination in his eyes that reminded her eerily of the resolve with which her father tackled his work. She didn't know what he was doing, but it was obvious that he was pouring his heart into it.

Thus the visits to Ben were much-needed respite, even thought the huntsman was sober and silent most of the time. Riza read to him, and they groomed the horses together, and sometimes, if Ben was feeling well enough, they went out into the woods. He showed her how to throw a push knife (which was difficult) and how to fire a stone from a sling (which was easy). Most importantly, he showed an interest in her thoughts and activities that was superior even to that provided by Mr. Regnier – for his teacher's interest in her was purely academic, and Ben cared for her wellbeing.

Riza was sad when the four weeks came to an end and the Hugheses moved on, but she said nothing to anyone. She merely bowed her little blond head, and poured her efforts wholeheartedly into her schoolwork. She was in the Fifth Reader class now, with the fifteen and sixteen-year-old girls who would be graduating with their diplomas in the spring. Mr. Regnier said that if Riza applied herself and worked hard, there was no reason why she might not be permitted to graduate with them. Riza wasn't sure if she liked this idea, and when she voiced her worry, her teacher had smiled. Of course he didn't want to be rid of her, he said. But there was no reason that she had to remain a grammar student. He could order course materials from the universities next year, and she could continue to study at the little rural school as long as she wished to. Riza found that comforting. She didn't want to leave school, ever. She loved her teacher, and she loved her lessons, and it was the one place where she was truly proficient.

It was not until August that disaster struck, throwing Riza's world into turmoil. The catalyst, oddly enough, was none other than Maes Hughes.

_discidium_

"'_About six weeks ago, we were reassigned to trench duty,'"_ Roy read. Supper was finished, and the dishes washed, and the two young ones were sitting in the kitchen. A letter had arrived that afternoon from Maes, and Roy was now reading it aloud while Riza listened. She had never had much use for Maes, but he was Ben's little brother, and she knew that while the tinkers were on the move, Roy was the young man's one contact. So she listened with interest.

"'_The stupid thing is, we were building earthworks seventy-five miles from the front! You couldn't even see canonfire at night, we were that far away! Anyway, Roy, you have no idea how boring that is, digging holes that nobody is _ever _going to need to hide in. I tell you, the military is _NOT_ the glamorous career you might think._'"

Roy shifted his arms a little, reading on. "'_Lucky for me, my major's a decent man. He's been keeping an eye on me since I got my promotion, and I think he could tell I haven't been happy. So he called me to his tent three Fridays back. "Sergeant," he said; "I want you to get it off your chest, whatever it is. I can't have good men exploding in my camp. It ruins unit morale_." _Well, you know how I've been itching to say something, Roy, so I __told him. I explained that I like the military and all, and he's just about the best officer a guy could hope for, but I'm _bored_, you know? 'Cause drilling and building bulwarks is fine, but I miss using my wits. There's not much call for brains in an NCO. Not that it hurts to have them, but you know? I don't use them much – not on the job, anyway_.'"

Roy paused, and Riza nodded politely. This was a longer letter than usual, and she wasn't sure if it was terribly interesting. Maes seemed to be saying a lot of the same things that he'd said in the last dozen letters, but Roy seemed excited, so Riza wondered if something better was coming up.

"'_You'll never guess what he said! He said that he understood just what I meant, and that if he was any judge of soldiers, I was officer material. He said that I should consider applying to one of the military academies. I said I'd like that, and how would I go about that? Turns out you have to be recommended by an officer: the Southern Academy requires somebody with a rank of major or higher. I thought, well, that's perfect! He'll put in for me... but when he said that, he shook his head. Why didn't I try for the National Academy, he asked. It's harder to get in, but he'd have a word with his colonel, and see of Old Knocknees – I mean, Colonel Harper – wouldn't support my application. I dunno what strings the major pulled, but sure enough, Harper signed my papers, and I put in for a place in Central.'"_

"Maes wants to go to the Academy?" Riza asked. "Isn't he too old?" She knew that he was going to be twenty-one this winter.

Roy shook his head. "Of course not!" he said. "You can't be too old for the Academy: not if you're a serving soldier, anyways. I guess they probably don't take _old_ men, but Maes is still young." An animated grin spread across his face as he brandished the letter, too excited to continue with his verbatim reading. "And he got in!" he said enthusiastically. "Maes got in! He's going to go to school in Central. The National Academy's a really good school, too: the cadets take classes at the university, and everything. Maes always wanted to go to university, but he couldn't afford it. Now he can go, _and_ he'll be an officer! Isn't that wonderful?"

Riza nodded. It did, indeed, sound wonderful. She wondered fleetingly if the National Academy took girl cadets as well as boys.

"Isn't what wonderful?" a low voice grunted. Papa came shuffling into the room, shooting an annoyed look at Riza. She always seemed to annoy him these days. It was as if he looked at her hoping to see something... and was disappointed when he realized that nothing had changed since the last time he had seen her.

"It's Maes, sensei!" Roy said enthusiastically. Riza envied his ability to speak so candidly in her father's presence. She was perpetually terrified of saying the wrong thing, while Roy seemed to grow more and more sure of himself with each passing day.

"Maes? Your friend the tinker's brat?"

"That's right! He's been accepted to the National Academy!" boasted Roy. "He's going to be an officer!"

Papa's expression darkened like the prairie sky before a storm. Riza felt her heart palpitate within her chest. He probably didn't even know Maes had joined the military: she couldn't imagine him asking, and Roy wouldn't volunteer that information. It was only his delight at his friend's success that was overriding his discretion now.

"A murderer, you mean," he growled.

"No," Roy said, squaring his shoulders defiantly. "He's going to be an officer, and he'll help protect the people!"

"The military only protects the people because there are foreign folk to kill," Papa sneered. "Just you wait until the day when the Fuhrer and his minions tire of raping and ravaging other nations, and turn their attention on their own people. _Then_ you'll see what kind of a hell we've built for ourselves."

"The military wouldn't do that," Roy said.

"Oh, wouldn't it?" Papa countered. "I don't remember this being your tune a few years ago, my boy. Weren't you the one who'd dissolve into panicked tears at the very mention of the word _corporal_? Or don't you remember that?"

Roy flushed a horrible shade of crimson, hunching in on himself. Riza, who didn't remember anything of the sort, stared at her companion in dismay. What was wrong?

"Tell me, what kind of an organization goes around terrifying small children?" the alchemist needled. "Or are you going to try to deny it?"

"It wasn't the soldiers, it was the state orph..." Roy shook his head wretchedly. "They didn't understand. They were just small men, just like shopkeepers or farmers. Nobody treated me... well. Back then." He closed his eyes, trying to regroup. "It's 'cause they didn't have good officers," he said. "They need good officers to set the right example. The military _needs _people like Maes!"

"Needs them for cannon fodder, maybe," Papa sneered. "Do you really want that bespectacled friend of yours skewered on the end of an Aerugan bayonet?"

"That won't happen," Roy said firmly. "Maes is going to be an officer, and he's going to help the people. He'll protect us from our enemies, and he'll make Amestris a safer place to live."

"We need the military, Papa," Riza agreed softly. "They make sure that we can life in peace."

He rounded on her, eyes narrowed. "Where did you hear that?" he growled. Then he cuffed Roy up the side of his head. "Have you been spreading that _officer's_ propaganda to my daughter, you ungrateful brat?" He spat the word _officer_ out in such a way that it sounded like hideous profanity.

"No!" Riza yelped, her instinct to defend Roy overriding her good sense. "No, I learned it at school!"

There was a silence, and in that silence Riza understood that she had said the wrong thing.

"At school?" Papa said, his voice low and dangerous.

"M-Mr. Regnier says that the milit-tary protect us," Riza whispered. Her father's pale, withering glare was turned upon her, and she wished that the ground would swallow her up.

"Then he's an ignorant teen, too."

"He's not a teen, he's a grown man," Roy contradicted, glad to have an edge in the squabble. "And he knows what he's talking about. He used to be _in_ the military, and he worked with State Alchemists, and he protected us from Creda!"

Papa closed his eyes and grabbed Riza's shoulder, gripping it so tightly that the girl almost cried out in pain.

"Are you telling me, young lady, that the schoolteacher is a _soldier_?" he growled.

"No," Roy said hastily, rounding the chair and putting an imploring and placating hand on his teacher's wrist. "No, he's not anymore. He lost his arm, so he couldn't..."

Papa released Riza, using his arm to backhand Roy across the face instead. The boy stumbled one step to the left before he caught his footing and regained his balance. The alchemist looked from one pale face to the other.

"Well," he said tersely. "We'll just see about that."

Then, with a whirl of his smoking jacket, he was gone. The front door opened with a _bang!_ and then slammed shut with such force that the parlour window rattled. The two children remained motionless for a long moment, and then Riza got up and ran from the room. She pounded up the stairs, deftly springing over the trick step, and hurled herself into the bathroom. She managed to close the door before she started to weep. Papa was angry! Her arm still hurt where he had grabbed her, and he had said terrible things about the military, and he had made Roy look sick and ashamed...

... and worst of all, what was he going to do to Mr. Regnier?


	64. When the Day is Done

**Chapter 64: When The Day is Done**

Bella Greyson had scarcely seen Mordred Hawkeye in two years, so it was a shock when he turned up on her doorstep that evening, his unkempt hair wild about his face and his greatcoat thrown over his smoking jacket despite the August heat.

"Mordred!" she cried, the rift between them forgotten in her moment of concern. "What's wrong? Is it one of the children?"

She was already reaching for her back with one hand, and for a scarf with which to tie back her greying hair with the other. The alchemist, however, did not seem distraught. He was angry.

"Where is he?" he snarled.

"Where is who?" Bella asked, her eyes narrowing.

"That stinking schoolmarm. Where does he live?"

"Over Nick Pascoe's offices, of course – why?" What could reclusive Mordred Hawkeye possibly want with the schoolteacher? "Has Riza been having trouble with her lessons? I had the impression she's deporting herself brilliantly."

"Oh, she's learning what he's teaching, all right," growled the man. He raked a hand through his stringy locks, sweeping them away from his face. "Why didn't you tell me he was a damned _soldier_?"

"Because he isn't," Bella said. "He was discharged years ago. He's a qualified teacher, and he's done very well for the village from the moment he arrived. Now calm down, go home, and have a nice cup of tea. You're behaving like a crazy old man."

"Do you know what she's been saying? My only daughter?" sputtered Mordred. "The military protects us! They make it possible for us to live in peace! Did you hear that, woman? _Peace_! Do you have any idea the kind of lies..."

"Mordred!" Bella said sharply. "Settle down right now, or I'll sedate you! You can't expect the child to grow up in a country governed by martial law without being exposed to a few concepts that are at odds with your absurd republican ideals! The way things are is the way things are, and getting angry at Riza and her teacher won't solve that. All you'll do is make the poor child miserable."

"Then what would you have me do? Let him pollute her mind?" Mordred choked out.

"Let her hear both sides of the argument – yours and Norman Regnier's – stated calmly and rationally. Then she can decide for herself what she believes. She has more intelligence than you credit her with... and she's not the blank, amoral slate that you seem to think she is, either."

"You raise your children as you see fit, and leave me in peace to raise mine!" Hawkeye snapped. Then he rounded on his heel and strode up the road.

For a moment, Bella considered slamming the door and letting him go. He was a bad-tempered old goat, and she had had it with his insensitivity and his cruelty. But then she thought of Riza, the poor little child who had lost her mother to death and her father to bitterness and grief, whose only touchstone with reality and normalcy was the small country school. She had to try to talk Mordred out of whatever he was trying to do, and do her best to patch things up between him and Regnier.

So she stepped out into the night, and hurried after him. She reached the attorney's offices just as Mordred was hammering on the door of the upper room. As she rounded the corner, the hem of her skirt snagged on the corner of a cart full of farming implements that was parked under the stairwell. She hesitated, tugging it free, while above her the door opened and candlelight spilled into the street.

"What can I do for—"

The schoolteacher's polite inquiry was cut short as the alchemist shouldered his way into the room. Bella hastened up the steps.

"This is Mordred Hawkeye, Norman," she said, coming up behind the alchemist. "His daughter is—"

"I can speak for myself, woman!" Mordred snapped. Then he turned on the teacher, who was watching him with wary eyes and a carefully mild expression. "What are these lies you're teaching my daughter?"

The former soldier's lip tightened a little in exasperation. "As I've already explained to a number of parents, the theory of human evolution is rapidly becoming the standard explanation for the development of intelligent life. Alchemists at our foremost institutions have conclusively proven that the makeup of the human body and the bodies of various primates are fundamentally similar. I don't mean to offend anyone's religious beliefs, but it's my duty to ensure that the children have a basic grounding in science, and that includes—"

"I'm not here to complain about _evolution_, you fool!" Mordred snapped. "_I'm_ an alchemist! I'd be offended if you were teaching her that the world was carried on the back of a giant turtle, not—"

The other man's eyes had widened. "I'm sorry, Mordred _Hawkeye_," he said, almost eagerly. "You're Riza's father!"

"Ye-es..." Mordred said, a little taken aback by the excitement in the man's voice.

"She's by far my best student," Regnier said. "I don't know who taught her how to study, but I've never seen such a dedicated child. Would you please have a seat!"

Bella watched in amusement as the alchemist sat, clearly nonplussed. Mr. Regnier turned to her. "Just leave the door, so we can get a cross-breeze. Would you care to..." He gestured at the other chair.

"Thank you, no," she said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. She didn't want to put the teacher at any sort of tactical disadvantage in whatever encounter was coming now. "I'll be quite comfortable here."

He nodded, and then sat across from Mordred, resting his arm on the table. "She's incredibly bright," he went on enthusiastically. "I've got her in the Fifth Reader class, and she's not eleven yet. I've been meaning to talk to you about options for next year. Eastern University offers a number of correspondence classes that I feel she'd definitely be up for trying – maybe not maths or sciences, yet, but certainly some of the literature and history..."

"Thank you, no," Mordred said, trying to derail the other man's delighted monologue. It didn't work.

"You know," Regnier said, a tiny hint of reproach in his voice; "it was a shame that your work kept you from joining us for the recitation evening. Riza took us through the first two hundred years of Amestrian history, and she did so beautifully."

Mordred looked confused, and that made Bella angry. She knew for a fact that Riza had asked him to come, and that he had told her he was too busy. While she couldn't really argue that with no idea of how his research was progressing, she felt that he really should have made time to attend an event that was that important to his only living child.

"I'm here to speak on another matter entirely," Hawkeye growled. "I understand you aren't a typical teacher."

"No, typically teachers have four limbs," Regnier said pleasantly, gesturing at his hollow sleeve. "But I make do with what I've got. At least I still have two eyes!"

Mordred's jaw tightened. When he spoke, the words came out through clenched teeth, and they were scarcely audible. "You served in the military."

"Yes, I did," Regnier said pleasantly. "I was a graduate of the Western Academy, as a matter of fact. _Magnum cum laude_."

"And now you teach school in Hamner."

"An interesting change of vocation, I admit," the younger man agreed. "Then again, there aren't many trades with any use for a one-armed man."

Mordred's eyes narrowed in the way that meant something wasn't quite adding up. "The military supplies automail to serving officers, doesn't it?"

Regnier nodded. "But as you can see, I'm no longer a serving officer."

The glint of inquisition lighted in the alchemist's eye, and Bella felt herself relaxing. Mordred was an intellectual at heart: when faced with an intriguing puzzle, even his choler didn't stand a chance against his curiosity. "Why not?" he asked.

Bella knew the answer to this question. The school board had had many of the same concerns four years ago when Regnier was considered as a candidate. Though he had not laid out his past before the whole panel, he _had_ disclosed it privately to the physician, and after a great deal of soul-searching Bella had reported back to the board that there was nothing in the teacher's past that should preclude them from hiring him. Now, she waited to see if he would answer the alchemist's question, or brush him off.

"I was dishonourably discharged," Regnier said, shrugging lopsidedly.

"For what?" Mordred asked bluntly.

"Does it matter?"

"I'll decide that when I have the whole story," Mordred growled.

Bella felt an obligation to step in. "That's enough, sensei," she said. "Leave the man alone. The board was more than happy to hire him, and he's done an admirable job. That's enough."

"No, it isn't!" Mordred snapped at her. "I've entrusted my daughter to him all these years... and tonight I find out that not only was he in the military, but he worked with State Alchemists and he was dishonourably discharged. I think I'm entitled to an explanation!"

"I agree," Regnier said mildly, stroking his chin with his hand and looking pensive. "I imagine my work with the Wild River Alchemist would be of interest to you. I can't go into detail, of course, because we're still in conflict with Creda, and—"

"'At war', not 'in conflict'!" Mordred corrected harshly. "Don't feed me your military euphemisms. The Fuhrer may lie to the public, but you'll regret it if you lie to me!"

"All I know is what the newspapers tell me," Regnier said coolly. "And they still say 'in conflict'."

Mordred obviously couldn't think of an appropriate comeback. "The Wild River Alchemist," he grumbled.

"I was his aide-de-camp for three years," Regnier said. "Essentially a bodyguard. I lost my arm in a raid that very nearly cost us both our lives." His eyes took on a vacant, haunted look. Bella recognized it, for even in her rural practice she had seen it before. Shell shock, they called it, or battle fatigue. "As it was, he escaped relatively unharmed, and I with three of my limbs. I was lucky."

He didn't look like he felt lucky, and Bella's temper flared. How did Mordred dare to invade this man's house so late at night, and drag him down into misery? The teacher who was always so good to the children, so kind and cheerful... did he deserve to be reliving this at the alchemist's pleasure?

"So you lost your arm in the line of duty," Mordred said. "That doesn't add up at all. Aren't you precisely the kind of person that the military loves to idolize? You should have been fitted out with a state-of-the-art limb, plastered with medals, and touted as a fine example of nationalism and patriotism."

"Perhaps," Regnier said noncommittally. "The next week, the major's expedition went sour. Sixteen of his twenty-man unit were slaughtered, the major himself was shot through the heart, and my lieutenant brought back three wounded comrades."

Bella closed her eyes, trying not to hear the pain in the man's voice as he continued.

"He didn't know what he was doing. He was just a green kid: he didn't understand about the Credoans, that's why it happened. I should have led that mission... but I was flat on my back with a freshly amputated limb." Regnier sighed. "I was the captain, it was my responsibility to see that my men came out alive. It was my responsibility to protect the major. I failed in both respects."

"It wasn't your fault," Bella breathed, as she had the first time she heard this story. "You were wounded. You couldn't have—"

Regnier laughed, a hard, bitter laugh that made the hair on the back of the doctor's neck stand on end. Again, she felt an irrational surge of rage. Mordred Hawkeye brought out the very worst in people.

"I could have tried," he said; "but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, and they went out without consulting me. Seventeen men dead. A State Alchemist dead. Someone had to be responsible for the blunder."

Mordred's voice was hard and without pity. "So you were their scapegoat?" he sneered. "How can you respect the military after this?"

The teacher shook his head hypnotically. "They would have blamed my lieutenant," he said. "It wasn't his fault. He was just a kid: had a wife and a baby at home. So, I ordered him to lie, to say that I'd gone off AMA to lead the mission, and that I'd failed to protect the major. The court-martial bought it, my lieutenant was let off with a reprimand, and the major received a state funeral."

"You took the blame..." Mordred mused softly. "It wasn't your mistake, but you told them it was. Why?"

"The military needs to maintain order," Regnier said simply. "Someone had to take responsibility, and my lieutenant had a family to think of. It was an easy choice, really."

"So you lied," Mordred seethed. "You lied to protect your subordinate and you lied to protect the military. You lied to preserve this charade that's going to lead us all to ruin!"

"It's not a charade," the teacher argued tersely. "Normal, happy people have a right to live normal, happy lives. In order for them to do that, someone must suffer. You're an alchemist: you must see that equivalent exchange demands it. Soldiers give their pain to protect the people. What I did might have been stupid, but _someone_ had to do it. The needs of one man are outweighed by the needs of the nation."

Suddenly, Mordred was on his feet, and the chair in which he had been sitting was lying on its side on the floor. "Is this what you're teaching my daughter?" he cried. "That it's noble to be the whipping-boy of the nation? That she's supposed to sacrifice every hope of a normal life so that small-minded farmers can go right on being small-minded? What kind of a philosophy is that? It's just propaganda! It's an excuse dreamed up by the Fuhrer and his rat-pack of evil advisors to justify wars that benefit no one! Can't you see the flaws in this system?"

"I understand that there are people who feel that way," Regnier said; "and I respect your beli—"

Mordred slugged him across the face with such force that the man's head snapped to one side.

"Mordred!" Bella shouted, springing to her feet.

Regnier stumbled up, daubing the back of his hand against his bleeding lip.

"Wake up!" the alchemist shouted. "It's fools like you who trap us in this system – damned idealists who are willing to _destroy_ themselves for the benefit of the State! And you're not just condemning yourself, you're condemning our children. _My _children!"

"It's better that they learn self-sacrifice for a dubious cause than that they never learn it at all," Regnier bit back. He was angry now – angry as Bella had never seen him. "Don't you think I know what you are? You're a selfish old man who locks himself away from the world, engrossed in your precious research. You see no one, you help no one, you care for no one – not even your own daughter!"

He circled the table, keeping Mordred at a distance as the alchemist began to bristle like a goaded wolf. Bella's instincts screamed at her to _stop_ this, but a part of her mind rebelled. The hateful, hurtful things that Regnier was saying... every one of them was true. And Mordred needed to hear them from someone.

"You make me _sick_!" spat the teacher. "Your daughter is one of the most beautiful, talented, _exceptional_ children I have ever known. She's the kind who comes along once in every ten thousand people. And how do you treat her? You don't give a damn! She's lonely and she's hurting, and you're too blind to see it! The only thing I can do about it is encourage her in her studies and try to give her some kind of hope for the future. And that boy, your apprentice! He has a good heart, and if it were up to you, he'd be turning it on himself and locking himself away just like you do. He needs a higher purpose, something to aspire to. At least _he'll _use his alchemy, which is more than I can say for you! You're a failure, Mr. Hawkeye, and I pity you, but I can't let you destroy those two young lives!"

Mordred launched forward with a feral roar of rage, and Rengier flew back against the sink. The cupboard full of dishes sprung open, and chipped china rained down, shattering on the floor. The younger man held up his one arm in a defensive gesture, dancing out of the way as the alchemist swung for him again.

"Mordred!" Bella screamed. "Stop it! Mordred, stop!"

He couldn't hear her, or he chose to ignore her. A moment later, the two men were locked in a wrestling stance as the alchemist muttered maledictions and strove for the advantage. Regnier held his own as best he could, but he was at a marked handicap. Mordred grabbed his chest below the stump of a shoulder, and flung him down to the floor. Then he struck out with his foot, catching Regnier in the ribs.

"You fascist!" Mordred hollered. "You beast! How dare you presume to tell me how to raise my daughter? How dare you criticise? You don't know what it's like, you soulless minion of orthodoxy! Have you ever tried raising a child alone? Your damned government, you bloody military... you don't know!"

"I'm a fascist," Regnier panted, trying to scramble to his feet. "But you're a hypocrite! Have you ever done _anything_ good in your miserable life? Helped _anyone_? Do you even know what it feels like?"

"Mordred!" Bella screamed, tears starting from her eyes as the alchemist lurched forward again. This time his boot caught Regnier in the nose, and there was an explosion of blood.

"Filth! Military scum!" Mordred shouted. Regnier finally managed to regain his footing, and snatched up a chair, holding it like a shield as he backed away towards the door. Blood was streaming down his face and staining his shirt a deep, lurid carmine.

"You're killing her!" he cried, so overcome with emotion that all good sense was failing him. "You're destroying Riza! She could be so much more than you think that she is, if she can just have the chance!"

Mordred grabbed the leg of the chair and tried to wrench it from the other man's hand. Regnier overbalanced, still groggy from the blow to the nose and probably reeling from loss of blood. He fell down with a concussive _thud_! Mordred loomed over him.

"_No_!" Bella shrieked, launching herself forward. She threw her arms around Mordred, pinioning his limbs to his chest and panting frantically over his shoulder. "Stop it!" she pleaded.

"Get off of me, woman!" Mordred snarled, trying to writhe free. Bella held fast. She was smaller than he was, but she was strong, and she held her own.

"Stop it! You'll kill him, and _then _what will happen to the children?" she exclaimed. "Mordred, you've got to settle down! You both want what's best for Riza: you just have different ideas of what that is! Forget your damned stiff neck for a moment, and think of your daughter! Think of _Lian's _daughter!"

It was the wrong thing to say. With a yowl of fury, Mordred spun around, finally flinging her off. Bella flew through the open door, and out onto the balcony. For an instant, she thought that the railing would stop her, but it was too low: it struck below her centre of gravity, right in the midst of her thighs. Thrown off-balance by the unexpected impact, she felt herself pitch backwards, over the edge.

_discidium_

Once, when Mordred Hawkeye was eight years old, his night had been interrupted by shouting in the road outside his window. Old Man Blodger's barn was on fire, and the village was rushing to aid him. His father and his grandfather had joined the crowd, and Mordred, curious as ever, had followed them. He remembered standing in the field, and watching the flames consume the building, enthralled by their power and their majesty. Then, without warning, the black skeleton of the roof had buckled and collapsed, killing Blodger and his two daughters, who had gone in to lead the horses to safety. Mordred remembered the instant of helpless horror when he realized what was about to happen: the moment of terrible epiphany when he knew they would die, but he was powerless to stop it.

This was a moment like that.

For a fraction of a second, Bella's pretty, curvaceous form was silhouetted against the shimmer of the gas lamps below. Then, before the alchemist could move or cry out or even breathe, she fell.

The sound from below was terrible. There was a crash and a squelching sound, and then a low, broken moan.

It was impossible to tell which man moved first, but it was Mordred who reached the doctor as Regnier stumbled to the bottom of the stairs. The alchemist forced himself to look at her – to look at what he had done – even as the gorge rose in his throat and the strength left his legs.

She had fallen on her back into the cart of farming implements. Her frock was torn, and the stays of her corset were protruding from the side like gaunt ribs denuded in the moonlight. One arm lay twisted into an unnatural position, obviously broken. Her head was lolling back against the teeth of a small hand plough, and she was staring up at him with glassy, startled eyes.

Most horrible of all, a pike – the kind used to drive hogs to slaughter – was protruding up, a handspan below her left clavicle. She was the doctor, but Mordred knew that even if the projectile had missed her heart, it must be passing straight through her lung.

"Bella!" he choked out.

She drew in a rattling, agonized breath, and he could hear whistling from the terrible wound. "I fell..." she mumbled.

"Hold still!" Mordred cried, grabbing her uninjured hand and gripping it tightly. "We'll get help! We'll fetch a... a..."

She smiled a little. "A doctor?" she croaked. "Right here. My diagnosis..."

A feeble cough erupted from her throat, and more black blood oozed out around the spear lodged in her chest. A pink foam was starting at her lips.

"Roy..." she choked out, speaking through her anguish and around the pole that was sucking her life away. "He's... a good boy."

"Yes," Mordred agreed. He would have agreed to anything at that moment.

"Riza, so smart. University..."

"Don't talk, ma'am," Regnier said softly, coming up behind Mordred. "Just stay still. That pole's keeping you from bleeding to death. If we can hold out long enough to get another surgeon to town..."

Bella shook her head ever so slightly. "No doctor... in forty miles," she said. "They'll need a g-good locum."

"Don't just stand there, man!" Mordred cried, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Go and get help!"

"Of course," the teacher said. His voice had the eerie, inhuman calm of a military man under fire. Mordred was glad when he stumbled off at a loping run.

"Bella," he pleaded wretchedly. "Bella, hold on."

"No..." she said. "Not anymore. Mordred, please... take care of..."

"They're my children, Bella. Of course I'll take care of them!" Mordred sobbed. She couldn't go! She couldn't die! Not like this! Not when it was his fault! She couldn't... not Bella...

She shook her head, and her dark hair, now streaked with grey, fell free of its scarf. She looked suddenly young again. So young. Fifteen, perhaps, like the night when they had spoken of their dreams and their ambitions... and then made clumsy, fond love amid the sacks of flour in the loft of his grandfather's mill.

"Yourself," she whispered, and Mordred didn't understand what she meant.

There was another horrible, hollow gasp, and another shriek of air escaping from the punctured lung. Then Bella stiffened, and, to the alchemist's horror and amazement, laughed her merry, silvery laugh.

"Mor...gause..." she breathed, her bloodied lips curling into a smile of bliss.

Then her back lost its arc, and her hand went limp, and her pierced heart ground to a quavering halt. Mordred bent over her broken form, burying his face against her breast, and wept.


	65. Martial Law

**Chapter 65: Martial Law**

The coroner was dead, so a physician had to be brought in from New Optain to perform the autopsy. A circuit judge from East City came the following week to preside over the inquest. It was ruled death by misadventure, for the examining doctor had found no injuries that could not be explained by the fall, and the testimony of the two witnesses – one Mordred Hawkeye and one Norman Regnier – were in agreement: Doctor Isabella Greyson had stumbled, lost her balance, and pitched over the railing. The funeral was a large one, for the doctor had been a well-loved pillar of the community. Mordred Hawkeye did not attend, which those who were old enough to remember the friendship between the two said was a sin and a shame, but his daughter was present, sober and silent in a dark blue frock, with the slant-eyed Mustang boy beside her.

Mordred never did find out why the teacher had equivocated in his testimony, but he suspected that he owed it to Regnier's fondness for his daughter, rather than to any attribute of his own. Had he thought about it more thoroughly, he might have been grateful, for differently construed the events leading up to Bella's death might have had him on trial for manslaughter. As it was, he was able to resume his reclusive life largely untouched by the grief that was tearing the community around him apart.

Mordred's own grief had to be suppressed and denied. He couldn't think about it. Bella dead – that was terrible enough. Bella, killed by him in a fit of incandescent fury... it was unbearable.

So he locked his study door, and sat alone, and worked new black tattoos into the meat of his calves, waiting for the day when his canvas would be large enough to write upon. Girls often experienced their growth spurt as young as twelve or thirteen, the textbooks claimed. In a few short months, Riza would be eleven. She was already catching up to Roy Mustang again, for the boy, though nearly fifteen, was absurdly small for his age. Soon, Mordred thought morosely. Soon the girl would be large enough.

_discidium_

Riza was crying again. Roy knew, because when she did, she would go up to her room and hide in the bottom of her closet. He didn't think that she knew he was aware of the habit, and it probably would have upset her. She seemed to think that her grief had to be a silent thing, despite the fact that his heart, too, was breaking. Her self-isolation hurt him, not only because he would have found comfort in commiserating with the one person who had loved Doctor Bella as much as he had, but because he could not bear to watch her suffer in silence.

He knew that at least part of the problem was that she was afraid that her father would catch them comforting one another. He did not understand why Hawkeye-sensei was suddenly averse to the sight of them spending time together, but on more than one occasion since the morning he had returned to find them sleeping in each other's arms, he had spoken very sharply on the subject. Roy wanted to subscribe to Maes' philosophy: it was only a crime if you got caught. Riza, on the other hand, took her father's displeasure to heart, and she had been awfully distant ever since, even before Doctor Bella's death.

Roy had to admit, guiltily, that he was partly to blame for the estrangement. He was tired of Hawkeye-sensei's constant derogatory comments about his lack of proficiency in alchemy, and he had been practicing as hard and as long as he was physically able. This didn't leave much time for chores, let alone sleep, and it left almost no time at all to try to court his way back into Riza's good graces.

Today, though, he resolved he would try. Three weeks had passed since Doctor Bella's funeral, and in all that time the alchemist had scarcely left his study except to relieve himself. As Roy set out breakfast for two, he reflected that perhaps they were never going to see sensei out of his sanctum again.

He was just about to head upstairs to try to coax Riza down, when to his surprise she walked into the kitchen. Her hair was neatly brushed, and she was wearing her good blue poplin dress. In her arms were her slate, her exercise book and the Fifth Reader. She didn't look like she had been crying at all. Roy dared to smile.

"You're going back to school?" he asked.

Riza nodded. "Mr. Regnier said I might graduate this spring if I work hard," she said softly.

"Well, eat your breakfast, then," Roy said. "I'll get your dinner pail ready."

She sat down, and nibbled at her toast. Roy cut some bread, and wrapped a piece of cheese in waxed paper. He had been to the shops yesterday, so there were fresh green apples. He put one in, then thought better of it and added a second. He didn't want her to be hungry on her first day back.

There was a creak of a little-use door, and slippered feet padded up the corridor. Hawkeye-sensei came into the room, glanced at Roy, then sat down and started helping himself to the eggs and toast. Roy tried not to look at Riza, who was suddenly twice as tense as she had been, her appetite apparently gone. After a couple of minutes, she got to her feet, picked up her supplies, and tried to skirt broadly around her dead-eyed father. Hawkeye-sensei reached out one long arm and caught her elbow.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, setting down the mug of milk that ought to have been Roy's.

"To school, Papa," Riza whispered.

The alchemist plucked the books from her arms and set them down on the table, shaking his head sombrely. "No, you're not," he said, his voice suffused with remarkable calm. "You're not going back to that school ever again, do you hear me?"

Riza stared at him, utterly flabbergasted. Roy could almost smell her fear. "B-but Papa..." she stuttered.

"Never again," the man repeated, his voice still quiet and devoid of emotion. "I don't want you anywhere near that man, I won't have my daughter picking up ridiculous ideas and military propaganda, and that's my last word on the matter."

Roy wanted to step forward, take Riza's hand and protest this unjust edict, but he was too disarmed by Hawkeye's mannerism. Experience had taught the boy that his master usually gave orders sharply. This new quietude was frightening.

"But Papa, Mr. Regnier said if I studied hard I might go to the university when I'm older, and—"

"I haven't got the money to send you to university," Hawkeye-sensei said, and now his voice sounded a little more clipped, a little more irate. "You can study at home. I have plenty of books, and I guarantee I'll work you harder than any half-witted soldier. Now, clean the dishes, and I'll find something for you to read."

"But I want to go to school," Riza whispered. "Mr. Regnier likes me..."

"Well, I don't like him!" the alchemist said with such finality that it was obvious that he considered the matter closed.

Riza fell silent, staring down at her shoes. Roy prayed that she would let the matter drop. He didn't want her father to wax violent.

Then she raised her head, and her crimson eyes were welling with tears. "Doctor Bella wanted me to go to school," she ventured.

With an oath, the alchemist put down his fork. "If it weren't for that man and his jingoistic meddling, Bella would still be alive!" he barked. "Don't you _dare_ tell me what she would have wanted!"

The harsh tone and the cruel allegation were too much for the child to bear. Roy watched in numb consternation as Riza began to weep disconsolately, burying her face in her hands.

"Stop it!" her father shouted. "Stop blubbering! She's dead, and tears won't bring her back! Stop it, I say!"

Then he seized her by the shoulders and shook her cruelly. Riza's head bobbed forward and back, her sobs coming out in choked, punctuated gasps.

"_Don't_!" Roy screamed, unable to watch any longer. He wasn't a child anymore, and he wasn't going to stand there and watch like a child, either. A distant memory of another skinny boy – dark haired and bespectacled – springing selflessly into the jaws of doom to defend _him_ tugged at Roy's mind. He pulled back his foot and kicked the alchemist in the shin with all the strength he could muster.

It wasn't enough to really hurt the man, though Roy almost wished it was, but it had the desired effect: he released his hold on Riza. The girl dropped like a ragdoll, but Roy had other worries. His master was now turned on him.

"What did you say?" Hawkeye growled.

"I said don't!" Roy snapped, as boldly as he could. "Leave her alone! She's upset because she misses Doctor Bella – because Doctor Bella took better care of her than _you_ ever did!"

An almost psychotic smile spread over the alchemist's gaunt face. "Did she, now?" he asked.

"She did! So you leave Riza alone! You're not allowed to hit her anymore! Just leave her alone!"

To his astonishment, the alchemist laughed. It was a thin, unpleasant sound that sent chills up the boy's back. "Who's going to stop me?" he sneered. "_You_?"

"That's right!" Roy exclaimed, not even thinking how ridiculous he must look – a rail-thin, undersized teen standing up to a full-grown man. "Can't you see she's scared of you? You could at least let her _cry_ without trying to hurt her!"

What he was doing was very, very stupid, protested some remote corner of his mind... but the rest of him was angry and fed up, and bristling with conviction. The way sensei treated Riza was _wrong_, and there wasn't anybody else to tell him that now. Her grandfather was gone, she was forbidden from seeing her teacher, and even kind, loving Doctor Bella was dead. There was only Roy, now.

Hawkeye-sensei raised his hand, poised to box his apprentice's ears. Roy stood fast as the alchemist swung – and then ducked at the last moment. His size was an advantage, he coached himself, recalling the words of Absalom Hughes. He was smaller and nimbler and quicker. He caught the flying wrist, and twisted it around, hopping behind the alchemist and jerking on the limb. Hawkeye-sensei spun, startled. He tried to grab a fistful of Roy's dark hair, but again the boy was too quick for him. He ducked, kicking again. This time his foot found its mark with greater conviction, and the alchemist grunted in pain.

"Riza loves you, and it's not fair of you to hurt her!" Roy cried. "All she wants to do is make you happy!"

The disquieted misgivings of long, silent years were bubbling up to the surface, and like a captive pushed too far by creative interrogators, Roy was powerless to stop the flow of words.

"Nothing she ever does is good enough for you! She works so hard, she _tries so hard_ to make you happy, and all you can do is criticize! You didn't even go to hear her recite at the school. She wanted you to be there! Why didn't you come? Your research can wait: what about Riza?"

He was so furious now that he hardly knew what he was doing. His arm pulled back, and then there was a soft _sock_ of flesh against flesh as his fist connected with the alchemist's cheek. Hawkeye's head snapped to the side, and he caught himself against the table.

Roy froze.

He had hit his teacher! He had hit Hawkeye-sensei! This wasn't the angry pounding of a child's helpless hands... this was a blow to the jaw that had sent the alchemist reeling. He couldn't believe... he _couldn't believe_ what he had just done.

Neither could Hawkeye-sensei. He raised a hand to his face, where a bruise was already forming. Despite his consternation and the growing terror that was fuelled by the adult's murderous glare, Roy felt a tiny pang of satisfaction. It was a moment of payback for dozens of bruises he had born at the man's hands. A moment of justice for Riza's mistreatment. A moment of vindication.

Then Hawkeye-sensei spoke, and the terrible, ominous calm was back. His voice was as low and deadly as the snarl of a panther.

"That's it," he breathed. "I have had enough."

He straightened himself and smoothed his clothing, advancing on Roy like an angel of death. "_You_," he snarled; "are my _apprentice_. You are here to learn my alchemy and to do as I tell you. _She—" _He jerked his thumb at Riza, who was cowering by the leg of the table. "—is my _daughter_. You are not equals, you are not friends, and you are most definitely not allies in some romantic coup intended to overthrow my authority! From now on, things are going to change in this house."

He reached out and smacked Roy against the side of his head. This time the boy didn't duck: he was too numbed by what he had done to muster the wits to duck.

"You are no longer allowed in this room," sensei said harshly. "The kitchen is off-limits. You will sleep in your room, and you will work in the study, and you will take your meals in there with me. You are no longer responsible for the household chores. Your only duty is to study, and to do as I tell you. Do you understand?"

He didn't wait for an answer, which was fortunate, because Roy did _not_ understand.

"As for _you_!" the alchemist snapped, rounding on Riza. "You are the woman of this house now that your mother is dead, and it is high time that you behaved like it! From now on, _you_ will cook the meals, _you_ will do the laundry and _you_ will keep the bedrooms clean. You are this young man's hostess, do you understand? It is not your place to speak to him, or to fraternize with him, or to _play_ with him. He is my pupil, and he is to be treated with respect. Do you understand?"

"But sensei..." Roy started. This was ridiculous! He and Riza had always been together. They had always played together, read to one another, frat-whatevered together. He couldn't just... just _forbid _them from spending time together!

"Silence!" the alchemist snapped. "I am a tolerant man, but I will not accept insubordination in this house. If she tempts you to disobey me, I will remove the temptation."

He glared down at the child, who was watching him with enormous carmine eyes. "From now on, you will address _my pupil_ as Mr. Mustang," he said. "If I hear you using his given name, I will be very angry."

Riza nodded frantically. Roy shook his head. "Sensei, we're friends: you can't just—"

"_Silence_! You will address _my daughter_ as Miss Hawkeye. If you require anything, she has instructions to fetch it for you. You are not permitted to involve yourself in her duties, and if I find that you have been interfering in the running of the household, you will both be punished. Understood?"

"Yes, Papa," Riza said softly, and Roy felt part of himself dying with those words. Did Riza really want to give up like that? Did she hate him so much that she was eager to be dissociated from him?

"Good," the alchemist snapped. He scraped the remaining eggs onto his dirty plate, and thrust it into Roy's hands. "Bring that into the study," he ordered. "You can eat it before we get to work. And _you_," he added, addressing the girl. "Put on a pot of tea for my apprentice and I."

Then he strode from the room. Roy stood there for a moment, shell-shocked and incredulous. Riza picked herself up from the floor, brushing at the spoilt skirt of her frock.

"He doesn't mean it," Roy said, trying to convince himself as well as the girl. "He's just angry for now. He'll forget about it in a few days."

He saw the doubt in Riza's eyes, but even expected, her next words cut him to the core.

"You're not supposed to be in the kitchen, Mr. Mustang," she said softly. "Papa wants you to eat in his study."

_discidium_

Riza spat the last of the baking soda into the sink, and rinsed it away, holding her toothbrush under the stream of cool water. She was very tired. Cleaning the house was a lot of work, and she didn't know how Roy had managed to do it all these years. How Mr. Mustang had managed to do it, she corrected herself, and there was a strange prickling at the back of her throat.

Momma was dead, and Doctor Bella was dead. Ben was far, far away in the south somewhere, with his father and Gareth and Tia. She was forbidden from seeing Mr. Regnier, and she could only assume that the same was true of Alayne and Norma and Susan. Now, even Roy was forbidden. He was Mr. Mustang, now: Papa's student. He was so far above her that she wasn't even allowed to use his name anymore.

She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. Big girls didn't cry. Papa hated it when she cried, and more than anything she wanted her papa to love her. She worked hard at the lessons he set her, even though he never checked her work or asked her to recite. She _tried_ to cook, even though she wasn't nearly as good at it as Roy was. She kept the parlour dusted and the bedrooms tidy and Papa's shoes blackened... and still, it wasn't enough.

Papa didn't love her. He didn't even seem to know that she was there... except sometimes, when she caught him staring at her back. She remembered when she had been sick with the chickenpox, and he had come to bathe her with peppermint-scented water. It was the last time he had been good to her, and she remembered then that he had said how pretty her back was. Like vellum, whatever that was. She wondered if he still thought it was pretty.

The bad step went off like a gunshot, and there was Ro—_Mr. Mustang_, standing in the corridor, watching her through the open bathroom door. Riza turned, tugging at the sleeve of her nightgown. He looked tired and sad, but he tried to smile.

"G'night, Riza," he said softly.

She felt a palpitation of fear. "Miss Hawkeye," she whispered, correcting him.

He stiffened as if she had slapped him, and then turned to go. Riza wanted to cry. She had hurt him! He was her boy, and she had – no, no, he was Papa's pupil, and she wasn't to consort with him. But...

"Good night, Mr. Mustang," she said timidly.

He looked over his shoulder, and for a moment she thought that he was going to cry, too. But then he squared his shoulders and nodded politely before disappearing into his bedroom.

_discidium_

"I don't want you to do the laundry," Roy said, coming into the kitchen on a Tuesday afternoon in late September. Hawkeye-sensei was napping on the settee in his study. Judging from the heaps of crumpled notes around his chair, he had been up all night. He would be asleep for at least two hours.

Riza looked up from the dirty clothes she was trying to sort. She looked small and shabby in her oldest frock, and it hurt him to see her like this, bent over a common, menial task that seemed somehow beneath her.

"Please leave the kitchen, Mr. Mustang," she said, with a formality that filled him with a desolate nausea. "I'm working."

"I don't want you to do it," Roy said, coming forward and taking one of Hawkeye-sensei's soiled shirts from her. "I'll wash them: it won't take me long."

"I'm supposed to—"

"You'll spoil your hands," Roy said softly, taking hold of one of her palms and brushing it with his thumb. It was so soft and smooth. "You have pretty hands."

The tiniest flush appeared on her cheeks, and she looked away. "I suppose I could dust the parlour," she said.

Roy nodded encouragingly. "Sure," he said. "I'll be quick, I promise."

She gave him a tiny, grateful smile. For a moment, he was hopeful that her armour of formality was cracking, but then she spoke. "Thank you, Mr. Mustang. You're very kind."

_discidium_

Every time she said those two words, a little piece of Riza's heart died. She could scarcely remember anything of the world before he had come to live with them. Practically all of her life, he had been there to talk to, to play with, to hug even when there was nobody else. Now he was forbidden, and she could hardly bear it. _Mr. Mustang_. _Mr. Mustang_.

She didn't mind doing the chores: she was a big girl, now, and she could manage. She didn't mind doing the cooking – and now that October was on the wane and she had been at it for two months, she was actually getting quite good. She had always felt bad that he did so much, and she so little. No, what hurt was the enforced distance between them – a distance she didn't dare to bridge, even when Papa was out of the house on one of his trips to the apothecary. She wasn't Riza, and he wasn't Roy: they were Miss Hawkeye, and Mr. Mustang. And with this bitter statute, neither of them ever heard their given names at all. They had no identity other than that meted out by Papa: his daughter, his apprentice. Miss Hawkeye and Mr. Mustang.

Three days ago it had been his birthday. Mr. Mustang's fifteenth birthday. There were no presents this year, for there was no Doctor Bella to bring them. There was no cake, for Riza didn't know how to make one. There was only Mr. Mustang and Miss Hawkeye, exchanging the briefest and most formal of greetings when she brought the meal trays into the study, and when she returned half an hour later to bear them away.

Riza was lonely, desperately lonely, but she did not dare to reach out. Perhaps one day Papa would notice what a good girl she was being, how she never disobeyed him, even in secret. She suspected that she still had Roy's affection, even if he couldn't express it and she couldn't ask for it. She knew she didn't have her father's. Yet.

_discidium_

"Riza, I've got a letter. It's from Maes."

His whisper sounded flat and impotent in the darkness as he crept into her bedroom. He knew she was still awake, because he could hear her breathing much too shallowly and too quickly.

"He says the Academy's really something. He's taking classes in history at Central University, too, and... Riza?"

She had turned her face away from him, and was hunching under her bedclothes.

"Please, Mr. Mustang," she said timorously; "I—I'm very tired. I need my sleep."

Roy swallowed hard and backed away. "Sure," he mumbled. "Sure, Riza – Miss Hawkeye – _Riza_. Sleep tight."

As he tiptoed back to Davell's room, he thought he heard the tiniest of sobs filtering through the night from within her room.

_discidium_

November was here, and the house was cold, but Riza didn't care. It was long after midnight, and she had heard Papa trudge off to bed a long, long time ago. She slipped out from under her covers and padded into the corridor, silent as a cat on her bare feet. The door to his room stood ajar. Not Papa's room, of course, but the other one. Mr. Mustang's room.

She slipped in through the small space, and crossed the moonlit floor. He was lying on his side, half-curled in upon himself. He looked so peaceful, lying like that, and the space between his body and the wall looked cozy and inviting. It had been so long since Riza had been close to another person, and her body craved the consolation of physical contact, but she did not dare. They weren't even allowed to eat their meals together anymore: Papa would be _furious_ if they shared a bed.

Though she was cold and the floor was icy, Riza knelt down. She rested her chin on the edge of the mattress, not far from his shoulder. She sat there for a long time, watching him sleep. His chest rose and fell slowly. His breath was warm. She could almost feel his heartbeat through the mattress.

Long before dawn, she tore herself from his side and slunk back to her own room, treasuring the memory of each moment by his side. It was the closest thing to companionship that she had left.

_discidium_

In the novels that Riza and Doctor Bella had been wont to read to one another, the man and the woman always fell slowly in love. Sometimes they were friends, sometimes enemies... but there always came a time when they looked at each other on some otherwise ordinary day, and realize that they wanted to be together forever.

Roy wondered if he'd ever feel that way about anybody. He sighed softly, staring blankly at the Greek manuscript of Plato's _Republic_ that sensei had handed him when he had complained that he was tired of drawing the same simple circles over and over again. He was fifteen, and he was lonely. The occasional letters from Maes only made it worse. He wished Riza would talk to him... but she never did, no matter how hard he tried. After a while, he realized that it hurt less if he just didn't try; though he still made a point of using her real name, instead of _Miss Hawkeye,_ whenever sensei wasn't around.

The door to the study opened, and Riza came in, her small arms struggling under the weight of the dinner tray. She looked at her father, who was sleeping with his head pillowed on his arms, and then came over to set her burden down on the end table by the sofa.

"Egg salad?" Roy said, smiling at her. "My favourite!"

"I know," Riza whispered, her eyes shining for a moment in obvious pleasure that he had noticed. Then she looked away. "Mr. Mustang."

He sighed and reached out for her wrist. "Riza..." he breathed sadly.

She pulled her hand away, and shook her head almost imperceptibly. Her eyes were fixed on the carpet. He got the message. She wasn't willing to disobey her father for him. She slipped from the room as silently as she had entered, leaving Roy alone to nibble on his sandwich and wish with all his heart that things could be as they once had been.

Maybe he didn't love her in the way men and women loved each other. Certainly he didn't want to _kiss _her... not on the mouth, anyway. On the forehead might be nice. He very much wanted to hug her again. As this thought occurred to him, he knew with the firm, innocent conviction of the child he might once have been that he _did_ love her. He had known very little love in his short, lonely life, but until these last few months Riza's had always been firm and constant, and he realized now that he had come to need it and to reciprocate it. He loved her. He understood, now.

_That_ was why this enforced estrangement was tearing his soul to pieces.


	66. Turned Out

**Chapter 66: Turned Out**

"But I can do it perfectly. I've done it perfectly eleven times." Roy gritted his teeth against the frustration that had been building all day.

"I don't care: do it again," Hawkeye-sensei said. "You're too impatient. You're impulsive. And lately you've been argumentative, too."

That accusation was certainly well-grounded. Roy knew that he'd been especially stubborn and cross this week. Part of it, he knew, was because he was lonely, starved for Riza's company but rebuffed when seeking it. Part of it was the dreary November weather, which grated on his nerves. A larger part was that he was, quite simply, bored. The basics of alchemy were well enough, but the more time he spent on them, the less stimulating they grew. He could perform even the most complex of the transmutations he had been taught with control and panache. He was ready for more advanced studies, but his sensei had not been forthcoming.

"How much longer do I have to do this?" Roy dared to ask. Even six months ago, he never would have dared to address Hawkeye in that tone of voice, but lately his exasperation had been mounting. He _wasn't_ an idiot, and there was no reason for him to be put through these simple exercises over and over again. He was ready for something more.

"Until I say you can stop," sensei said coldly. His candle was starting to sputter, so he licked his fingertips and quenched the flame.

"But I'm ready for something new," protested the apprentice, a little startled by his own persistence. But then again, a person could only be pushed so far until they started to push back.

The incident when he had punched the alchemist squarely in the face was proof enough of that. The memory made Roy feel vaguely ill. How many times over the last few months had he regretted that impulsive loss of control? Easy. Once for every time he heard Riza address him as _Mr. Mustang_. That one moment of righteous vindication had most definitely not been worth this isolation from the most important person in his life.

"Are you?" the alchemist said, turning in his chair and eyeing Roy appraisingly. "Tell me, what do you plan to do with all of this?"

"W-with all of what?" Roy asked hesitantly.

"With what I've taught you. Are you planning to pursue a career in industry, perhaps? I hear there's good money in automobiles. Or maybe agriculture. You can do some impressive things with the back hedge." There was something strange about Hawkeye-sensei's tone, but Roy wasn't sure what he was driving at. "You could raise enough capital to buy a nice little home, find yourself a wife, and do what I did."

_Nothing_? Roy wanted to say, but he wisely held his peace. "Take pupils, you mean?" he asked.

The man grunted affirmatively. "Of course, I imagine you haven't thought much about it, being so young."

His silky tone made it sound like an insult, and Roy realized that he was being baited. He ground his teeth together. He wasn't going to lose his temper, he told himself sternly. It wasn't worth it. Every time they butted heads, sensei won in the end. "I've thought about it," he said. "I just haven't decided yet, that's all. Alchemy needs to be used for the good of the people, doesn't it? That's a tall order."

"It is," agreed his teacher. "But from those to who much has been given, much will be expected." He crossed the room to the box of candles and chose one, rolling it thoughtfully in the palm of his hand. He waited.

Roy moistened his lips with his tongue. "What about State Alchemists?" he asked.

Hawkeye's eyes narrowed. "What about them?" he purred.

"Well, don't they use their alchemy for the benefit of the masses?" Roy asked. "They protect us from our enemies... we're surrounded by hostile nations, and if it weren't for the State Alchemists, they'd overrun us. And they do research, too. They've done a lot for medical science. And what about gasworks and plumbing? Those were perfected by State Alchemists, weren't they?"

His sensei scowled at him. "You know entirely too much," he said grimly; "and yet nothing at all. How many times to I have to tell you? State Alchemists are filthy. Immoral. They prostitute their knowledge to prop up a corrupt and obsolete regime. They use their gifts to kill. They are nothing more than human weapons: the same as a cannon or a mortar, only worst; because a State Alchemist can think, and should know that what he is doing is wrong. Yet he continues to do it. They are deluded scum, and it sickens me that you even speak of them in terms of honour and usefulness."

"Oh." Roy hung his head. He didn't understand what his teacher was saying. State Alchemists weren't weapons, they were soldiers, just like any other soldier. Amestris needed its soldiers, or the armies of Creda and Aerugo would surge up and swallow the country. The military did not only protect the people, it protected the nation's sovereignty. Surely that was a noble goal, wasn't it?

Sensei returned to his desk, replacing the burned-down candle with a fresh one. Pensive fingertips picked at the immaculate wick.

"I knew less of alchemy than you do when my sensei decided I could no longer benefit from his tutelage; did you know that?" he asked thoughtfully.

Roy didn't.

"Yes. That was when I started work on my own research. I was nineteen."

"Oh," said Roy, because he really didn't know how else to respond.

"My point is, my boy, that we are rapidly reaching the end of what I can practically teach you." He reached into his pocket for his flint. With a flick of his finger, he sent a ribbon of flame to ignite the candle. Roy watched hungrily.

"What about that?" he asked.

"You can do that with a match," Hawkeye said dismissively.

"But it's alchemy, isn't it?" Roy pressed. He had been coveting that secret for a long time, for it was unlike anything he had ever read about in the dozens of dusty tomes he had worked through over the years. If sensei had nothing else to teach him, then why not this?

"You're not ready to learn that." The man's voice was suddenly flat, his expression inscrutable.

"Why not?" Roy asked. "I've managed everything else you've taught me, haven't I?"

The pale eyes rounded on him, narrowing to slits. "Go and fetch your coat," Hawkeye-sensei said. "You and I are going for a walk."

Roy wanted to ask why, to say nothing of where, but he ran to get his coat instead. It was the one that he had worn the last two winters, and the sleeves were a good three inches too short. To his annoyance, the body was still on the loose side. He buttoned it carefully up, and wrapped his muffler around his neck, as sensei came out of the study and led him out the front door.

They walked in silence, Roy trotting to keep up with the adult's longer stride. They cut across a field and moved towards the old mill road.

"Are we going to the quarry?" Roy dared to ask.

Hawkeye gave him a sharp, startled look, and then curled his lip critically. "Ah, I forgot," he said wryly. "Your little adventure last summer."

"Two summers ago, sensei," Roy corrected. It seemed like another lifetime, and he wondered if Maes, now firmly ensconced in the National Academy in Central, felt the same way.

"Yes, we're going to the quarry," said the adult. Then he lapsed into silence.

They did not take the dangerous shortcut, but rounded the perimeter of the pit until they reached the hauling road. Roy looked around the cavernous depression with apprehension, remembering his last visit.

When they were well below the level of the prairie, Hawkeye-sensei stopped. His left arm extended out across Roy's chest as he pushed the boy backward until his spine was pressed against the rough rock wall.

"Don't move," the alchemist said sternly. He reached into his pocket and took out his flint.

There was a rushing wind, whistling through the stone confines of the quarry. Roy could feel the raw surge of spagyric power as the air around him rushed to obey his sensei's command. Then, very slowly, Hawkeye flicked the iron wheel.

A ribbon of flame arced through the air, rising in a broad spiral over the waters of the reservoir. Higher and higher it twisted, until it burst into a broad rosette of fire that leapt and licked the air in a lively dance. Then it collapsed in on itself, and a series of explosions descended down towards the water. Roy could feel the heat on his face, could smell the ozone and the clean fragrance of carbonless flames. He could feel the might and majesty being channelled through whatever array his sensei was using. That flow of might was every bit as alluring and intoxicating as the ballet of fire before him...

And then it was over.

The flames snuffed themselves in midair, and Hawkeye-sensei lowered his hand. Roy's eyes riveted to his teacher, whose chest was heaving as his breath came in heady, laborious pants. His eyes were glossy with rapturous exultation, and a thin sheen of perspiration stood out on his brow.

"Well... ah... hah..." he gasped, his ribcage rising and falling. He was trembling, Roy noticed, as if coming down from the apex of ecstasy to find reality insufficient to sustain him. "Ahh... It's been a long time since..." He drew his hand across his forehead, and twisted his thin lips into an eerie smile. "Now you know," he muttered. "My alchemy isn't just parlour tricks and a convenient way to light candles."

"_No_..." Roy exhaled in awe. He had never seen – had never _imagined _– such a display of majesty, energy and skill. If he had been hungry for this knowledge before, he was starved for it now. "Teach me," he begged. "Teach me your secrets, sensei."

At the word _secrets_, the alchemist's expression hardened. His eyes grew steely, and he glared at the boy.

"You're not ready," he said.

"But sensei, I've mastered—"

"Don't you see?" Hawkeye said, and there was a strange light in his eyes, a manic desperation that was almost terrifying. "Don't you see how dangerous it is? In the wrong hands... with the wrong intentions... my research could cause a holocaust. The destruction it could wreak... no, you're not ready."

"But I would never do anything like that," Roy protested. "I understand how important it is to do good. I wouldn't use it for evil."

"You don't even know what you want to do with your life," the alchemist snapped. "How can I entrust this power to a child?"

Roy stiffened as if he had been slapped. After all these years, after everything he had accomplished, his sensei still looked on him as a child. It hurt him and it sent a concussive shudder straight to the base of his self-respect.

Hawkeye-sensei put out a quivering hand and gripped Roy's shoulder. He held up his other fist, and coughed fretfully. "I'm tired," he sighed. "I haven't done anything that... dramatic in a long time. Help me back to the house."

Roy obediently let the alchemist lean on him as they ascended out of the quarry and made their way slowly back home. When at last Hawkeye was sitting in the heavy chair before his desk, he fixed his eyes firmly on Roy.

"You've learned enough," he said. "It's time for you to decide what you're going to do with your life."

"Sir?" Roy said, bewildered.

"You heard me. I want you to decide what you're going to do. How you're going to use what I've taught you. What kind of a man you want to be."

"I want to be a good man, sensei, of course—"

The man shook his head scornfully. "Words," he sneered. "I want proof." He pushed himself straighter in his chair. "You have half an hour to pack."

"To pack what?" Roy asked, a palpitation of apprehension fluttering through his ribcage.

"Clothes. Notes. That children's book you treasure like some artefact of paradise. Whatever you intend to take with you."

"But where am I going?" The look in his teacher's eyes was making Roy nervous.

"Didn't you hear me? It's time for you to grow up. I'm not going to decide these things for you anymore. You can go wherever you like, so long as you leave this village."

There was a stunned silence. "Sir?" Roy choked.

"I want you out of this house," Mordred said. "I've sheltered and protected you long enough. You have a basic understanding of my art: go out there and use it. Find out what you want to do, and start _doing_ it." He gestured vaguely. "One year. Come back in one year, if you're ready to tell me what you're going to do with your life."

"Y-you're turning me out of the house?" gasped Roy, feeling his limbs go cold. This was it: his nightmare, the fear that had niggled at the back of his mind since Riza had first baited him with an apple, coaxing him out of his hiding place in the back hedge. This was the undercurrent of repressed anxiety that had backlit his every word and deed since coming to live here: that one day the Hawkeyes would tire of him, and would throw him back into the gutter from whence he came.

"Consider it your journeyman's training," Hawkeye-sensei told him coldly. "If, when you return at the end of your year, you can tell me what you want to do with your life and how you wish to use your talents, then I will judge if you are worthy of learning my techniques."

"B-but..."

"You're wasting your half-hour," the alchemist said. "You now have twenty-four minutes."

_discidium_

Afterwards, Roy could never quite say how he had passed those twenty-four minutes. At the end of it, however, he was standing on the front stoop with a pillowcase in his hand. It held his two changes of clothes, his toothbrush, his carefully amassed study notes in their red scribblers, and his childhood treasures – the primer he had been given by Riza's grandfather, and the fistful of marbles that had been the first concrete token of his friendship with Maes Hughes.

Hawkeye stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on the door. He hacked quietly into his sleeve.

"One year," he said. "If at the end of that time, you're ready to commit yourself, we'll see whether you're worthy of learning my flame alchemy. If you aren't ready, don't bother coming back until you are. Do you understand me?"

Roy nodded mutely. He was still in shock.

"Good." The alchemist dug into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a fistful of change. He dropped it into Roy's hand. "Now get out."

"But sir..." Roy rallied his wits. Riza! She was in the village, buying food for the week. He couldn't leave without saying goodbye! "Riza!" he yelped, forcing himself to speak. "I have to wait for Riza..."

Hawkeye glared at him.

"M-Miss Hawkeye!" Roy corrected himself desperately. "Please, just let me wait 'til I can say goodbye to her! 'Til I can explain to her why I'm leaving..."

"_I'll _explain to her," the man said coldly. "If you want to leave a message for her, I'll pass it on, but I want you off this property in..."

He glanced over his shoulder towards the parlour clock. "Ninety-two seconds."

"T-tell her I'll miss her," Roy choked out. "And I'll be back. In a year." He felt his stomach roil at the thought. "In a year. Tell her..."

He couldn't say it. The words were sticking in his throat.

"Tell her I'll miss her," he repeated lamely.

"Fine, fine," the alchemist said, waving his hand dismissively. "Now _get out_."

Roy wanted to protest. He wanted to argue that Riza needed him, and he had work to do _here_, and he couldn't just _leave her_, because she needed him... but the words stuck in his throat. He was in shock, rendered almost incapacitated by the suddenness of his banishment. A whole year? Where would he go? What would he do?

That, he realized, was the whole point of the exercise.

"Yes, sensei," he said meekly. Then he tucked his meagre bundle of possessions under his arm, and walked away, down the road towards the village.

He didn't know what else to do.

_discidium_

Riza stepped out of the bakery, smoothing a napkin over the fresh loaves in her basket. She was almost done her shopping for the day. It had taken much longer than usual, because she had had to stop by the dry goods store. Her frocks were all getting far too tight around the shoulders, and when she had timidly told her father this three days ago, he had thrown nine hundred _sens_ at her, and told her to do something about it. Then he had railed for half an hour about selfish _prima donnas_ who thought he was made of money.

Riza had almost given the coins back... but practicality had won out over her desperation to please him. She could hardly move in her dresses now, and she had to have clothes: she could scarcely go naked. So she had gone to see Mrs. Hampton. At the lady's suggestion, she had bought cloth for two skirts and half a dozen shirtwaists. These would be more practical as she started growing, the kindly old lady explained, and they would be easier to wash, besides. Riza was glad of that: laundry was hard work!

As she started down the street towards home, someone called her name. She turned to see Alayne Packard and Susan Trenworth hurrying after her.

"Riza!" Alayne repeated. "How are you? Nobody's seen you in _ages_!"

Riza hesitated, not sure whether to acknowledge the greeting. Then she decided that it would be rude not to, and Papa had never _forbidden_ her from seeing her friends – only from seeing Mr. Regnier. She smiled a little.

"How do you do?" she said courteously.

Alayne hugged her tightly. "Why haven't you been in school?" she asked. "Are you sick?"

Riza shook her head. "I'm studying at home now," she said softly. The truth was that Papa would give her difficult books to read whenever she asked him about her lessons, and she would do her best to work through them without assistance. "Papa needs me."

How she wished that were true! She tried so hard to keep the house running smoothly, but he hardly seemed to notice. Mr. Mustang did, and he would tell her when she did well, but it was not his approval that she sought.

"Oh," Susan said. "We've sure missed you! Can't you come out and play sometime?"

Riza sighed apologetically. There was no time to play. She was a grown girl, now, and she had work to do. "I'm sorry, I can't," she said. "It's nice to see you, though."

"Sure," Alayne said. "Well, at least tell us what you've been up to! We were worried about you when Doctor Bella died. My momma said she was a great friend of your family."

Riza felt tears prickling in her eyes at the thought of her beloved doctor. She still couldn't believe she was really dead! It seemed almost like she was out on one endless house call, and that she would come back tomorrow, and have her and Roy over for dinner again. She would hug Riza and tell her how much she's grown, and...

She shook her head. She couldn't think about that. "I have to go," she said quietly. "I need to get the meat into the icebox before it goes bad."

"Don't be a stranger!" Alayne chided, hugging Riza again. Starved for physical contact, Riza wanted to melt into that friendly embrace... but she couldn't. She pulled back, smoothing the too-short skirt of her frock.

"G'bye," she said softly. Then she tightened her grip on her basket and turned her back on her friends. She hurried up the street, head bowed so that no one would see the tears trickling from the corners of her eyes.

The house was very quiet. Riza put the food away, and then slipped into her father's office with the mail. There was a letter for him from the municipal authority, and one for Mr. Mustang. She set the former on her father's desk, trying not to feel hurt as he neglected to look up. Then she turned towards the settee where the apprentice usually studied. He wasn't there.

"Where's Mr. Mustang?" she asked.

"Who?" Papa said absently.

"Mr. Mustang," Riza repeated.

"Oh, _Roy_," grunted Papa, looking up briefly from his journaling. He shrugged lethargically. "He's gone."

"Where?" Riza wondered aloud. _She _was responsible for running the errands now. What business would her father's pupil have in town?

"I have no idea," Papa told her. "He just left."

Riza felt suddenly anxious. Roy – Mr. Mustang – was gone? "Is he coming back?" she asked tremulously.

"I doubt it."

Those three words shattered her world. He couldn't be _gone_! True, they could no longer be friends, but his very presence in the house was a source of comfort and security to her. She needed him! She couldn't live here alone, with no one but Papa for company! She _needed_ him!

"Did he say anything?" she sputtered. "Did he explain _why_ he had to go?"

"No," her father said bluntly. "Now run along and keep yourself busy. I'm working."

"B-but..." Riza felt a panicked sob welling up in her throat. She swallowed it with all the resolve she could muster. "D-didn't he want to say goodbye?"

Her father looked her squarely in the eye, and the single syllable he uttered broke her ravaged little heart.

"No."


	67. Best Friends

**Chapter 67: Best Friends**

Cadet Fourth Class Maes Hughes pulled his greatcoat over the smoky blue uniform jacket, trading jibes with his barracks-mates. It was Thursday, which meant evening furlough for the Social Sciences majors. As always, they were headed _en masse_ to the pub half a mile from the Academy campus, where the youngsters would get happily plastered, and Maes and Cadet Walters – who was the only other member of the group over twenty – would nurse their second whiskey and shepherd everyone safely back to barracks before curfew. It wasn't the most profound or productive way to spend an evening, maybe, but it was good fun.

Maes had settled nicely into life at the National Academy. His eighteen months in the field as a non-commissioned officer had imbued him with more than just a proficiency with firearms that served him well in drills. It had also given him a keen sense of duty and discipline, which meant that he was spared the usual struggle to adjust to regimented life. Most of his classmates were the privileged offspring of high-ranking officers, wealthy businessmen, and influential politicians. They had found it very difficult indeed to accept the stringent discipline of the Academy – more stringent for the first-year cadets than for any other group in the whole of the military. Maes, however, had merely grinned, shrugged, and clicked his heels together.

The balance between combat training and academic work was perfect, too. Maes was able to keep active while still indulging his penchant for critical thinking. He was taking the usual first year classes in military history, command competence, elementary combat strategy and ballistics. In addition there were his courses at Central University, where he spent his Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. He was taking a class in early Amestrian literature, introductory psychology, and just for the hell of it, a course in the history of organized crime. He'd chosen that one as a soft option to balance off the hard work in psychology, but it was actually really very interesting.

Being firmly settled in one place, he was also easier for his family to contact him. Gareth and Eli, who was still in South City making sights for rifles, both wrote about once a month, and his father had sent a letter at New Year's. Eli's letters were full of innuendo and indecent anecdotes that were the toast of the barracks. Gareth's letters were careful to focus on positive things, but enough hints filtered through the jocularity to tell Maes that Benjamin wasn't doing well at all. Selfish though he knew it was, he was glad that he was far away in Central City. Watching his eldest brother's despair and anguish and steady decline, knowing all the while that it was at least partly his fault, had been more than the soft-hearted young man could bear.

So, all said and done, he was satisfied with his lot and with his new position. There was just one aspect of his life that displeased him: he hadn't heard from Roy since November, and it was now the middle of January.

Roy's last few letters before the loss of contact had been more sombre than usual, filled with his discontentment with his studies. The hints that all was not as it should be in the Hawkeye household had been present, too, but far more subtly than Gareth's references to Ben. Maes gleaned from his friend's guarded phrases that Doctor Greyson's death had caused an upheaval in daily life. That news had upset the young soldier, for though he hadn't known the lady well, he knew she was important to Roy – and once he'd been informed, it had fallen to him to write to Eli to let him know of his colleague's untimely demise.

Maes wondered _why_ Roy had stopped writing. Perhaps he was just busy. Then again, perhaps he was ill. Most horribly of all, perhaps Roy wasn't interested in continuing their friendship. Maes had harboured a secret fear that something like that might happen once they were no longer seeing one another even annually. He knew that Roy was fifteen now, and that was an age of change. He remembered his own mid-adolescence vividly, and he knew how different a person became. What Roy no longer wanted to have anything to do with him?

The other sixteen cadets were filing out, laughing and jeering at their compatriots in other disciplines, who were not allowed out tonight. Tomorrow the tables would be turned, and it was this group who would be lounging on their cots being mocked by the mathematics majors, but the teasing was part of the culture. Maes shot a jovial jibe over his shoulder as he hauled the heavy door closed.

The grounds were lit by harsh electrical streetlamps, and the cadets strolled towards the gates more quickly than usual. An unexpected cold snap had descended on Central, and there was a blanket of crisp snow on the ground. Maes dug his gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on, hunching his shoulders so that the collar of his coat touched the brim of his cap. He half wished he had thought to bring his muffler, but of course it would be cumbersome in the bar.

The cadets on guard detail opened the gate for them, and there was another exchange of mocking repartee. Maes fell in between Walters and Conroy as they made their way out onto the road. Since there wasn't much traffic in and out of the Academy at seven in the evening, they kept to the middle of the road instead of chancing the slippery shoulder.

"Damn, it's cold!" Conroy groused. "I hate winter."

"I think it's all right," Maes said, despite the way that the chilly air was nipping at his nose. "I've spent most of my winters down south. You don't get much snow down th—"

"Maes!" A hoarse, frantic voice cut through the air. The rear two rows of cadets stopped, turning curiously as a dark figure who had been crouching in the ditch stood up and hurried onto the road.

It took Maes a moment to recognize him, for not only was he taller – certainly over five feet, now – and older, but his hair was overgrown and tumbling around his face. When he did, however, his whole face lit up as his chest was suffused with a warm burst of delight.

"Roy!" he cried, rushing back towards him. He turned to look over his shoulder, waving the others away. "You guys go on: he's a friend of mine."

There were a couple of snickers, but the group ultimately moved on; the allure of alcohol was greater than any interest they might have in their compatriot's social life.

"Roy!" Maes said again, gripping the boy's thin shoulders through his frost-coated coat. "What are you doing here?"

"I had to see you," Roy said. His teeth were chattering in his head, and Maes realized that he was quaking. "They wouldn't let me in."

"So you thought you'd wait out here until I happened to come out?" Maes asked. "Are you crazy?"

Roy shook his head. "It's Thursday," he said. "You said you have furlough on Thursday nights."

Maes laughed out loud. "You think things through, don't you?" he said, enveloping Roy in a companionable bear hug. "It's so good to see you! Why haven't you been writing?"

Roy pulled away, avoiding his eyes in the twilight. "That's a long story," he said.

"And you're freezing," Maes said, so that Roy wouldn't have to. "Listen, there's a pub up the road – that's where we were headed. What do you say you and I go there? We can nab a booth and you can tell me what's going on."

Roy looked like he wanted to protest, but practicality won out. He was obviously chilled to the bone, and they could hardly hold a private conversation in the middle of a road. Maes flung an arm around his friend's shoulder – in part because it was a friendly gesture, but also in the hopes of warming him a little. The teen was trembling so violently that Maes was surprised he could stand at all.

The walk passed in silence, and presently the cheery lights of the pub came into view. The _Hopping Raven_ was a charming little place on the outskirts of Central City. The bulk of its custom came from the Academy, which meant that things could get a little rambunctious at times – but seldom, if ever, did the situation turn violent. When the two friends arrived, the crowd of cadets were already well into their first round. Maes waved off the amicable hands offering beer, and led Roy to a little alcove near the back. He took off his coat and hung it on a peg at the edge of the booth, but Roy just slid onto the seat as he was, hugging himself and puffing a little.

"So. What are you doing in Central?" Maes asked.

Roy avoided his eyes, staring down at a grubby bundle of linen that he had been carrying. "It's good to see you," he said, exerting an obvious effort to keep his voice from shaking with his body.

Maes frowned in concern. "Are you okay?"

In the warm light of the shaded lamps, he could now see the state his friend was in. The unkempt hair was only part of the problem. His face was dirty – not the dramatic filthiness of a coal miner or a chimney sweep, but the subtle griminess of one who hasn't had a proper bath in a long time. He seemed to be wearing several layers of clothing, and he looked thinner than Maes remembered, which admittedly might have been a natural effect of his increased height. He had his muffler bundled up over his mouth, but his head and hands were bare, and his coat sleeves were too short for his arms. There were shadows under his dark eyes, and his skin was an unhealthy greyish hue.

"I'm just cold," Roy said. "I came into town four days ago, and I haven't been able to get warm since."

The barmaid came over, winking lewdly at Hughes. He favoured her with a weak smile. Why, of all the cadets in the group, she loved to flirt with him, he didn't know. All he knew was he wasn't especially interested.

"What'll it be?" she asked.

"Roy?" Maes said when his friend did not reply. "D'you want coffee? Tea? Hot milk? Mulled cider? Whatever you want: it's my treat."

"Brandy," Roy mumbled.

Maes could not help gawking. _Brandy_? Roy was only fifteen! Brandy was for old women and intellectuals. "Are you sure? Maybe some spiced wine?"

"Brandy," repeated the youth firmly.

Maes shrugged. "Brandy for him, I guess," he said. "And half a whiskey on the rocks for me, thanks."

The girl nodded and walked off, swinging her hips provocatively. Despite his academic disinterest in her, Maes wasn't an automaton. His libido did a little somersault at the sight, but he quickly turned his attention back onto Roy. He had no intention of turning out like Eli.

"You'd better tell me what's going on," he said firmly. "You don't look so good."

"I'm just tired," Roy said. "And cold," he repeated sheepishly as another concussive shiver tore through him.

Maes wordlessly reached up to grab his coat, passing it to the other youth. Roy spread it over his front like a blanket, huddling into the added cover. "Thanks," he muttered.

"So aside from the fact that you were lurking outside the gates, lying in wait for me, why are you so cold?"

Roy gave him a dogged look. "Isn't that enough?"

Maes frowned. Why the hell was he being so elusive?

The waitress came back with their drinks. No sooner had she set Roy's down than the thin youth reached out from under his sable cocoon, tugged his muffler off and curled his hand around the glass. He raised it to his lips and took a long swallow, grimacing at the strong taste.

Maes chuckled. "Easy does it," he said, toying with his tumbler of golden whiskey. "Why brandy?"

Roy shrugged. "It's the only drink I've tried," he said. "It's sweet." He took another mouthful and closed his eyes.

"Is Hawkeye here, too?" Maes asked curiously. Roy shook his head. "Well, then, what are you doing in Central?"

"I didn't know where else to go," Roy said softly. For a moment, his expression crumpled into frightened vulnerability. Then it hardened again and he shrugged, lifting the glass to his lips again. "I've started my journeyman's training, I guess."

Maes understood this: after all, he'd had three brothers move through the process. At the conclusion of an apprenticeship, it was typical for a tradesman to set up on his own, usually itinerantly. It was a period of independence that allowed the artisan to perfect his techniques and discover his own style before applying to a guild for master's status. However, journeymen were usually at least twenty-one years of age, and to the best of his knowledge alchemists did not subscribe to any such formal hierarchy.

"Really?" he asked. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure," Roy said. "I thought... I mean, it's been such a long time since we've seen each other, I had to say hello." He sighed. "I've been fixing things; you know, with alchemy. It's... people like it."

This was interesting. Maes had always been curious about alchemists. "How much can you charge for that?" he asked, with a salesman's instinct.

"I don't know."

"I thought you said..."

"I haven't been doing it for money," Roy admitted. "I've been doing it for food, for a place to sleep." His lips curled into a smile that was not quite sincere. "It's kind of fun, actually."

Maes realized he was gawking, and he tried to school his features. "How long've you been doing it?" he asked, but he thought he already knew the answer."

"Almost two months," Roy said. "Hamner's a long way from Central."

"You _walked_ from Hamner?" Maes asked incredulously.

"Well, I spent a few days here and there. In the big villages, mostly. I came the last forty miles by train." Roy smiled a little. "I never thought they moved that fast."

"They're great," Maes agreed happily. He let a little whiskey evaporate on his tongue, and looked Roy over again. "You really need to cut your hair. I can't see your eyes. Makes you look like a sheep dog.

Roy gnawed his lips in embarrassment. "I know," he said. "I can't cut it myself, now can I?"

"I guess not," admitted Maes. "So, are you going to stay in Central? What are your plans?"

Again, there was a flicker of uncertainty on the younger boy's face. "That's why sensei sent me away; so I can figure out what I want do to with my life. I've got to find work, but nobody in Central seems very impressed with alchemy. I haven't had any luck at all since I got to Central." He knocked back another draught of the brandy. His glass was already almost empty.

"Well, there's lots of work for ordinary people," Maes suggested. "Just so you can get a little money together."

"That would be nice," admitted Roy. "Hawkeye-sensei only gave me three hundred and fifty _sens. _It didn't last long."

"Then where did the train ticket come from?" The question was out before Maes could put it more tactfully. He had to watch that: his naturally analytical mind was quick to pick up on contradictions, and it had got him into trouble with his classmates more than once.

"Boxcar," Roy said. "The fireman let me on. I, uh, made some adjustments to his pick and shovel for him, so he said I could ride. It wasn't too bad. A little cold, but... like I said, _fast_. 'Course, if he hadn't forgotten I was in there..." He shrugged his shoulders.

Maes felt his face crumple miserably. "Roy, why didn't you write to me?"

"I wanted..." Roy's lips twitched a little. "I wanted to see if I could do it."

This, too, made an odd kind of sense. Maes understood the need for independence. As the youngest, it hadn't been easy to convince his family that he was ready to strike out on his own. Still, he'd done it, and he was proud of how he'd made out. If he could help Roy on his own journey into adulthood, so much the better. Though admittedly, there were times when his friend seemed much older than he was.

"'Course you could do it," he applauded, raising his glass. "Cheers."

Roy looked at him quizzically.

"Tap your glass against mine," Maes explained. "You've never been in a bar before, have you?"

"Hawkeye-sensei wouldn't approve," Roy said, with a small, cheeky grin that was certainly genuine. He brought his glass against Maes' with a satisfying _clink_. Then they each took a drink. Maes hardly nipped at his, used to pacing himself. Roy finished what was left in his glass. "It's so good to see you again," he said.

"Sure thing," Maes said. "So, if you don't mind my asking, how'd you get promoted to journeyman so early?"

"Sensei thought I was ready, I guess," Roy said. He sounded almost proud now, and some of the colour was returning to his cheeks. Maes' coat had worked its way down onto his lap, and he seemed to be perking up. "I _am_ ready, I mean. I've mastered all the basics, but he says he can't teach me his secrets until I've decided what I want to do with myself; what kind of man I want to be."

"A good man, I hope," Maes laughed.

"That's what I told him," Roy said; "but it isn't intentions that matter: it's actions."

"Ah." Maes swirled the whiskey in his glass so that the ice clinked softly. "Do you know what you want to do?"

There was a silence. Roy stared down at his hands, and then said, almost reluctantly, "I want to be a State Alchemist."

Maes whistled softly. "You don't dream small, do you?"

"I guess not."

"It's... a good idea," Maes said. "I mean, the alchemists are important to the military. There was one stationed on the front when I was in the south. I hear he did a lot of good work."

"Sensei says they're just human weapons," said Roy hesitantly. "Riza's teacher told me they protect the people. How do I know which is true?"

"The one in the south was a doctor. He saved a lot of lives," Maes offered. "I don't know if he was even in the fighting."

Roy seemed to find this thought reassuring. His eyes roved to Maes' glass. "What're you drinking?" he asked.

"It's whiskey," Maes said. Good manners overruled good sense. "Want to try it?"

Roy took the cup gratefully and drew in a mouthful. His eyes widened as the potent potable hit his mouth, and he swallowed quickly. Then he sneezed. "That's strong," he said.

"Three or four glasses of that, and you won't remember your own father's name!" Maes agreed.

"I don't _know_ my father's name," Roy mumbled unhappily. He took another swig of his friend's drink. "Maes, you're in the military..."

He trailed off. "Ye-es..." Maes agreed after a moment. "I'm in the military."

"How do you become a State Alchemist?" Roy said. "I meant to ask Riza's teacher, but after Doctor Bella died sensei didn't want us to see him again."

"There's some kind of test, I think," Maes said. "I dunno. It's not really my area of expertise. I'll bet someone at Headquarters would know, though. You could go there and ask."

"I'll do that," Roy said, but he didn't sound very confident. Maes frowned pensively, studying the pale face and trying to see what was going on behind the carefully schooled mask of stoicism.

"Where are you staying?" he asked at last.

Roy flushed in a way that had nothing to do with the liquor. "Nowhere," he said. "I can't find anyone interested in what I've got to offer. Nobody in Central seems to think alchemy is anything special. Not like they do in the country, anyway."

"Where did you sleep last night?" Maes asked.

"River Landing Park," Roy said. "Or that's what the sign read. I wasn't the only one, so I figured I was allowed."

"I imagine you _weren't_ the only one!" Maes choked out. "That's a dangerous place, Roy! That's where all the tramps and the opium-eaters hang out! Not to mention the..." He gestured awkwardly, not sure if his friend would even know what a prostitute was but certain that he didn't want to be the one to explain it. "It's no place for a k—"

"_I'm not a kid_!" Roy exclaimed sharply, and Maes' heart twisted as he realized there were tears of hurt and indignation brimming in his eyes. "I can take care of myself, Maes! I didn't come looking for charity! I—"

"Easy, there, Mustang!" Maes said, holding up apologetic palms. "I know that. You missed me. I missed you too. I'm touched." He grinned toothily, trying to reassure him. "Seriously, I'm so glad to see you. You're my best friend, you know that?"

Roy looked over his shoulder at the crowd of cadets, who were starting to get visibly tipsy. "Really?" he asked. "What about them?"

"Them? They're just classmates," Maes said. He grabbed the other young man's wrist and gripped it, catching and holding the dark eyes with his own lime-coloured ones. "Roy. When you stopped writing, I was so worried you were done with me. You're the only friend I really care about. I'm _so glad to see you_. I really, really am." This line of conversation was getting a little too serious, so Maes shrugged lazily and smiled. "Besides, you're a nice change of pace from the well-heeled blowhards over there."

A tiny smirk touched Roy's lips. "Rich kids, huh?" he asked.

"Stinking," Maes agreed. He sat back and waved at the barmaid. "Gina! Another round."

"I'd like whiskey this time," Roy said. "If that's okay?"

"Sure," Maes said amicably. "Make it two whiskeys," he said. Then he looked at his friend. "You hungry?"

"No," said Roy.

"You're a terrible liar," Maes told him. "And this is the one night a week I can get decent food." He reached into the corner by the salt and pepper shakers, and plucked up the bill of fare. "My treat," he added. From a practical point of view, it was obvious that Roy didn't have two _sens_ to rub together, but this _wasn't_ charity. Maes would've picked up the tab even if Roy had been as flush as the spoiled brats across the room: this was his turf, and that made the younger man his guest.

Roy's lips were moving ever so slightly as he read the menu. Maes politely ignored the hand that brushed his lips, wiping away a stray trickle of saliva as his mouth began to water. The soldier felt an angry fist closing on his heart. What the hell was wrong with Mr. Hawkeye? Maes' father was a master-craftsman, as was Eli. Neither had ever dealt so harshly with an apprentice. Sending a fifteen-year-old – even a capable and intelligent one like Roy – out into the world with nothing but the clothes on his back and three hundred and fifty _sens_ was beyond heartless.

It presented a problem, too. Roy needed a little money to set himself up. He couldn't get any sort of proper employment without a set address, so they needed to find him a place to live. Maes had a little money laid by. The _per diem_ for first year cadets worked out to two hundred _sens_ a week, and even if a lot of his compatriots managed to spend it all on liquor, Maes didn't.

The question was, how could he get Roy to accept it without making him feel it was charity? Maes had come from a family that shared everything, and so the concept of communal property among loved ones was natural to him, but he knew that wasn't how Roy had been raised. He knew that as a child his friend had come to the Hawkeye house under unusual circumstances (the exact nature of which he had never investigated), and he had often wondered if they lorded this fact over Roy. Given his aversion to perceived handouts, they probably had.

The waitress came back with their drinks, and they each ordered some food: a corned-beef sandwich and vegetable soup for Roy, and ham with potatoes for Maes. While they ate, Maes filled the silence with stories about the academy, babbling happily on while Roy made the obligatory responses and occasionally chuckled. Maes found it reassuring. It was just like old times – except for the whiskey, of course.


	68. Too Little Care

**Chapter 68: Too Little Care**

The question of where Roy should spend the night gave rise to the first real argument the two friends had ever had. If Roy had been in better shape, Maes would never have won it – something of which they were both fully aware.

As it stood, however, the young alchemist was weary, both physically and emotionally drained. He was too worn down to bear the thought of another night in the cold, however obligated he was to attempt to refuse charity. Furthermore, his meal was sitting uneasily in his stomach – too much good food, he guessed, after weeks of short commons capped with four days of fasting. Strangest of all, his head felt light and the room seemed to be wobbling slightly on a vertical axis. All of his conspired against him, and Maes came out the victor in their little dispute.

They left the pub at about ten o'clock, when the crowd of cadets were just starting to wax rowdy. Maes pressed his gloves on Roy, who in truth needed little convincing to take them, and led him into the city. Roy followed a little unsteadily, his legs weakened by fatigue and his knees loosened by liquor. Maes found a single-occupancy hotel eight or nine blocks from the bar. It rented cramped little cells for fifty _sens_ a night. Roy protested that this was a small fortune, but Maes merely shrugged. He gave the proprietor a week's payment, which was as much money as Roy had been given to live on right before Hawkeye-sensei turned him out of the house. Then they went up to the room.

It was dreary and drab; seven feet long and just over four feet wide. There was a narrow, dubious-looking cot, a rickety table bearing a kerosene hot plate (with no kerosene), and a roughly joined chair. Two pegs on the wall took the place of a closet or clothes-press, and that was the extent of the decoration. The toilet was up the hall, shared with the other occupants of the floor.

"It's only for a couple of days," Maes said apologetically, looking around the wretched little room in dismay. "We'll find you something decent, I promise – but these sorts of places are about all you can find at this time of night."

" 'S'okay, really," Roy said. It was out of the wind, away from the snow, and fairly private. In short, a vast improvement on any lodgings he'd had recently. "I've slept in worse places," he admitted, flushing a little at the confession.

To his surprise, Maes didn't look on him with pity or dismay. He laughed. "So have I!" he chuckled. "Did I ever tell you about the time I was stationed south of Dublith? We were building breastworks, and it rained for six days straight. By the end of it, we were bedding down in eighteen inches of mud. You couldn't tell where the trenches ended and the soldiers began!"

Roy smiled tolerantly. He liked Maes, he really, really did, but sometimes he talked too much.

"I'd better get back," said the cadet. "I don't want to get caught sneaking in after curfew. I won't be able to come see you tomorrow, but I'll be here by noon on Saturday. Here's some money—"

"Maes, I don't need—"

"—which I expect you to _pay back_ once you're working," Maes said firmly, not taking "no" for an answer as he folded Roy's hand over the bank notes. "Make sure you feed yourself properly: right now a good north wind would blow you to Aerugo. And don't worry. I'll help you find a job. If you're bored tomorrow, head in to Military H.Q. and ask about becoming a State Alchemist. Okay?"

"Sure," Roy said. The room was by no means warm, but clad as he was in every stitch of clothing he owned, he was starting to feel hot and drowsy. The cot, though stained and lumpy, looked very inviting right now.

Maes held out his fist, and Roy bopped it softly. "Thanks, Maes," he murmured.

The older youth grinned and shrugged. "What for?" he said. Then he clapped Roy on the shoulder. "See you Saturday."

He backed into the corridor, and then suddenly Roy was alone. He closed the door – which had no lock – and stripped off his coat, his three pairs of trousers, and the four shirts. He had his nightshirt over his layers of undergarments, so he just peeled off his multiple stockings in two fat bundles and crawled beneath the greying sheets. The pillow was limp and smelled vaguely of vinegar, but Roy was too exhausted to care. Comfortable enough, he closed his eyes and slid into a muzzy, whiskey-tinted slumber. For the first time since his flight from Hamner, his sleep was untouched by troubled dreams, and his night uninterrupted by anxieties about Riza.

_discidium _

The following morning, Roy woke up to the unpleasant feeling that his mouth was full of sand. He coughed a little, his mind struggling to remember where he was and why. It all came flooding back in a wave of enervating relief. Maes. He had found Maes, and they'd gone for drinks. His friend had brought him food, and found him a bed. His desperate gratitude was interrupted with a burst of pride as Roy realized that he had done it. He had reached Central on his own, relying on his wits and talents, and he had been reunited with his friend!

Roy rolled onto his back, luxuriating in the feel of the mattress beneath him. The cot was hardly the most comfortable of surfaces, but he hadn't slept in a bed since leaving the Hawkeye house. On the road, he'd slept in barns or on hearthstones when he was lucky, and in hedges or hay-ricks when he wasn't. His luck over the last three or four weeks had been mostly bad, too, and so right now this bed felt deliciously decadent.

He had to get up, though, Roy reflected regretfully. He needed a drink of water, and today he meant to go to Military Headquarters in search of information about becoming a State Alchemist. Reluctantly, he pushed back the scratchy, musty blankets, exposing his half-clad body to the cool air. He sat, swinging his feet off the bed, and then hissed in alarm as his bare toes touched the frigid floorboards. He yanked his legs quickly up onto the cot again.

After putting on one pair of grimy socks and his shoes, and dragging his coat on over his nightshirt, Roy got up. His head throbbed in protest of the change in altitude. He fought the sensation and opened the pillowcase that contained his meagre possessions. He had accumulated a few more useful articles over the last two months. There was a tin cup with a chipped and rusting rim, a kitchen knife without a handle, and a well-gnawed wooden ladle, all unearthed from various middens. There was a sliver of iron, alchemically magnetized and driven through a scrap of cork so that he could float it in a ladleful of water and use it as a crude compass. He also had a spool of twine, an almost-empty tin of bootblack, and a good supply of chalk.

Roy took the cup, and shuffled into the corridor. There was no sign of a bathroom, but the tiny water closet was vacant. Roy entered, and switched on the overhead light. The bare bulb fizzled precariously before settling down to emit a harsh yellow glow.

Roy twisted the spigot on the tap. A horrible rattling started in the pipes, and with a cough and a choking sputter, a yellowish stream of water spurted forth, emitting a strong smell of sulphur. He waited, anxiously hoping that it would run clear given time. It did. He filled his cup and sucked back the water. It eased the foul feeling in his mouth, and sent his stomach churning hungrily. He ignored that.

He relieved himself and rinsed his hands – there was no soap. A cracked mirror hung above the sink, and Roy looked at his tarnished reflection. He flinched.

The face staring back was pale and dirty, lank black hair falling around it in oily strands. A few dark tendrils could be seen amid the pale adolescent fuzz on his jaw. He looked unkempt, unwashed, and utterly reprehensible. He knew he didn't smell very nice, either, and all of his clothes were dirty. His heart sank. He couldn't go to Military Headquarters like this. It was the seat of power for the entire nation – the place from which all of Amestris was run. He couldn't turn up on the Fuhrer's doorstep looking like a filthy vagabond.

He ran a hand through his hair, wondering fleetingly if he could cut it himself. He knew he couldn't. He would have to find a barbershop. He'd only had one barber's hair cut: a month after Doctor Bella's death. It had cost ten _sens_ each for he and Riza. Roy supposed it would be more expensive here. Everything seemed more expensive in Central.

He would have to find a way to wash his clothes, too. He doubted that there was a washtub here, and in any case there wasn't any soap. There seemed to be no bath, either, and he wondered how well he could clean himself using just the sink. An impatient hammering on the door interrupted that train of thought.

"I'm sorry..." Roy said, opening it and finding himself face-to-face with a grizzled old man. He had no teeth left, and his beard was stained yellow from tobacco. He was wearing an assortment of ragged garments piled one atop the other. He seemed almost as surprised to see Roy as Roy was to see him.

"A kid?" he wheezed. "What's a kid doin' here?"

"I'm not a kid, I'm an alchemist," Roy said in reflexive indignation. "Who are you?"

The man stared at him with glazed blue eyes. "Who am I?" he asked. Then he laughed shrilly. "I'm nobody. Nobody here is anybody. You're nobody, too." Then he snorted, wiping his nose on his tattered sleeve. "Now get out of my way: I hafta piss."

Shocked at this blatant rudeness and a little afraid of the haggard stranger, Roy obeyed, hurrying back to his wretched little room.

_discidium_

When he was dressed, Roy ventured out in search of a barber. He found one who charged him twenty-five _sens_ for a trim and a shave, and took another twenty to allow Roy the privilege of bathing in the concrete sink in his back room. Roy paid almost gladly, tainted only by the guilt at squandering Maes' money. It felt so wonderful to wash, even crouched down in the hard, narrow basin. He scrubbed well with the coarse soap the barber had provided, and dried himself with a small hand towel.

It was hard to put his dirty clothes back on, but he had no choice. By this time, it was nearly noon, and he was ravenous. He wanted a hot meal, but opted to exercise self-control instead. He found a bakery, and bought a five-_sens_ loaf of three-day-old bread. Then he returned to the hotel. The bread was hard and turning stale, so he softened it in his mug full of tap water, and devoured a quarter of the loaf. That was dinner.

He went out again to buy a bar of cheap soap, feeling guilty once again for spending his friend's money but unable to bear the feel of the dirty cloth against his skin. It was impossible to wash his clothing properly without a tub and board, but he did his best to clean his undergarments and socks in the sink in the tiny water closet. He would have cleaned his shirts as well, but he had nowhere to hang them to dry: his unmentionables covered the headboard and foot-rail of the cot, both pegs, and the back of the chair. Since his trousers were foul and he didn't want them next to his body, Roy put on his nightshirt and lay down on the bed. Before he knew what was happening, he was fast asleep.

When he awoke, the day was luridly red outside of the tiny, grubby window. Roy realized with a sinking feeling that it was too late to go in search of Military Headquarters today: they would not be appreciative of evening callers. He considered going out again... but despite the nap he was tired. So he ate a little more bread, took his notebooks from the pillowcase, and read for a while.

_discidium_

Maes came by at noon the next day, bearing gifts. He had a pair of fox-fur gloves, which he said Gareth had made him, but which he wasn't allowed to wear, as they were not regulation issue. A simple wool hat and a couple of his civilian shirts supplemented Roy's frugal wardrobe nicely. He also had a small stick of salami, a bag of dried apple slices, and a newspaper. Together, the two young men combed the advertisements – both those offering rooms for rent, and those seeking employees. There was little of promise in either category. Despite this, the friends bundled up at Maes' insistence, and went out in search of more permanent lodgings for Roy.

They had no luck, but they did see a good deal of that corner of Central. Even to Roy's country-boy's eye, it was clear that this was not the best part of the city. Hallmarks of penury and deprivation could be seen on every corner. Mangy cats grubbed in the gutters. Poorly-dressed children chased one another up and down the snowy streets, playing with squashed tin cans as if they were ingenious toys. Thin, ragged girls with burgeoning bellies or baby-laden arms haggled ruthlessly with lean, hungry-eyed merchants. Weary men with defeat in their eyes sat on the steps of tenements, smoking cheap cigarettes and conversing morosely. Laundry hung from windows and fire escapes, freezing stiff in the cold air. Everything was grey and brown and shabby.

As they passed yet another beggar huddled on the sidewalk, Roy felt vaguely ill. He moved instinctively nearer to Maes, who looked at him in surprise.

"Something wrong?" he asked, pushing his spectacles back up into place.

Roy tilted his head uncomfortably from side to side. "I never knew there were so many poor people," he said. "I always thought..."

He didn't finish the sentence with his tongue, but his mind completed it anyway. When he had been a little child, living on the streets and travelling from one town to the next as he was driven off, it had seemed to Roy that no one in the world was lower or more impoverished than he – that he was the only beggar in the world. Looking around him now, he was coming to the realization that that wasn't true. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of desperately poor people in Central alone – people who struggled frantically just to provide the basic needs of food and shelter. Some succeeded, to a degree. Many failed. And there were _so many of them_.

"Why doesn't the military do something?" Roy asked. "All of these people..."

Maes followed his gaze to a pair of children routing in a dustbin. They seemed to be looking for something interesting to play with. At least, Roy hoped that they were looking for a toy, because as horrible as that was it meant they weren't seeking food.

"There are a lot of 'em," he said. "More in Central than in South City."

"But there _are_ poor people in South City, too, aren't there?" Roy asked.

"Yeah, 'fraid so," Maes said.

"Why doesn't somebody do something?" Roy asked. "There are all those big houses in the north part of the city; rich people's houses. Why don't they help? What about the parliament? Couldn't they do something?"

"They don't see it," reflected Maes. "People from the Presidential District have no business down here. I'll bet a lot of them don't even realize that folks live like this. You can't fix a problem if you don't know it exists."

"Doesn't the Fuhrer know? Shouldn't _he_ do something? He has all that power and influence. Why doesn't he use it to help these people?"

Maes regarded him with a sad half-smile. "It doesn't work that way," he said. "The Fuhrer has other priorities to focus on. This isn't important to him. Maybe the next Fuhrer will feel differently, but for now nothing's going to change."

"It isn't right," Roy said disconsolately. "The powerful should protect the weak. The rich should help the poor."

"And the lion should lie down with the mouse," Maes went on. "Roy, you're such an idealist. Do you really think that any of that is going to happen?"

"I don't know," admitted Roy. "All I know is that it _should_."

Maes took him to a small but mostly clean restaurant and bought him a chicken supper, but Roy didn't have much of an appetite. All he could see were the thin, ragged children and the bedraggled panhandlers and city block after city block filled with poverty and despair. It wasn't right. Someone had to fix it. Something had to change.

_discidium_

The following week, while Maes was kept away by his studies and the weeknight restrictions on the activity of first-year cadets, Roy continued the search for work. From what Hawkeye-sensei had said, and what he had heard during his pilgrimage to Central, there was lots of work for alchemists in manufacturing and industry. In theory, at least, there probably was. But every factory Roy visited had a full complement of alchemists, and did not need or want any more. At first, Roy was amazed. He had never imagined there were so many alchemists in the world, much less in one city. This wonderment had accidentally voiced itself at a clothworks, and the foreman had laughed at him.

"The city's overrun with you freaks!" he had said. "The university draws 'em, and of course there are the ones who think they can make State Alchemist if they just keep trying – damned fools! Alchemists are ten _sens _a dozen in this town, boy, and most of them are taller than you!"

By Wednesday, Roy was growing discouraged and a little desperate, so when a woman at a publishing house where he had gone begging work said that no, they didn't need any alchemist, but they could use a stock boy in the warehouse, he had swallowed his pride and taken the job.

It was exhausting, mind-numbing, backbreaking work, carrying boxes full of books from shelf to shelf, loading them onto trucks, counting them and cataloguing them. But it paid a four hundred _sens_ a week. It was enough to buy food, but Roy couldn't afford to keep living where he was. Finally, on his third weekend in town, he and Maes managed to find a room in an overcrowded tenement building. It wasn't much bigger than the room at the single-occupancy hotel, but there was a little coal heater, and a sink – though the bath and the toilet were up the hall. It cost seven hundred _sens_ a month, which was nearly half Roy's wages, but at least he had somewhere to live, now.

The weeks passed, and with the daily struggle to get out of bed and go to work, Roy's thoughts of looking into the requirements for becoming a State Alchemist faded into the background. When he did have time to focus on anything but his own subsistence efforts, he thought about Riza. He wrote her letters whenever he had a little extra money to buy paper and an envelope, but though he left instructions for how to reach him, she never wrote back.

He hoped that she was happy. He hoped that her father was taking good care of her. He missed her with all of his heart.


	69. The Guardian

**Chapter 69: The Guardian**

Guilt lurked in the corners of the empty house.

It was strange, Mordred Hawkeye reflected as he fingered the shaft of a bamboo needle, how a single person's absence could render the place so vacant. He had never recognized the spirit and presence that Roy Mustang had brought to his home – so different from the alchemist's spiritless, practically invisible daughter. The boy's keen, inquiring mind, his developing self-confidence, and even the obstinacy and defiance that had characterized his last few months in the house... these traits hade all made the old building seem more vibrant and alive.

Now that he was gone, it was hollow. Dead. As dead as its master's soul. And the haunting remorse that his concerted efforts to maintain levity and normalcy had held so long at bay had come oozing out of the woodwork. It had settled over every room like a black fog, thick and oppressive and stifling. Without the distraction of his apprentice, there was nothing to protect Mordred from the gnawing of his long-denied conscience.

He felt guilty for so many things, not the least of which was sending the boy away. It was hard to remember, sometimes, what it was like to be fifteen, but thinking about it now it seemed like such a young age. True, Mordred himself had left home at fifteen, but to begin his apprenticeship, not to end it. At fifteen he had fathered and lost a child; but he had also learned how to swim and tasted ice cream for the first time. If he had been a child in a man's body (or perhaps a man in a child's body?) then it was not inconceivable that the same was true of Roy. He wished that that had occurred to him _before _he had driven him from the house.

He wondered how the lad was doing; what useful application he had found for his not inconsiderable talents; whether he ever thought of his teacher.

Mordred knew that he thought of Riza, for beginning in January letters had come from Central City, each one addressed to her. Mordred had foreseen this, and had made arrangements with the postmaster to have them withheld so that the girl would not pick them up with the rest of the mail. Strueby, who was understandably sympathetic to the cause of keeping one's daughters in line, had gladly agreed in exchange for what he called a "professional services fee" – in reality a bribe.

Mordred collected the letters whenever he happened to be in town. That was hardly a frequent occurrence, but he had sixteen epistles already. Since it would have been highly immoral to read them and he could not quite bring himself to destroy them, they were hidden; tucked between the pages of one of his alchemical texts where there was no chance of Riza finding them.

The remorse he felt for keeping Riza's mail from her was closely tied to the guilt of fibbing about Roy's departing words. Mordred knew the girl missed her erstwhile playmate and that she was taking his desertion to heart. She had not yet done anything so unforgivably childish as crying over it, thankfully, but from time to time she would ask if there had been any news of him. The answer was always the same: "Of course not. Why would there be?" Then her round little face would crumple into misery, but each time she regained her composure more quickly. She was learning to control herself, and was hopefully growing less and less inclined to think fondly of the friend who had abandoned her.

It hurt Mordred to see her like this, but he knew that it was necessary, and he tried to deny his pain. He was almost certain that Roy Mustang was his one worthy successor; the person who would take his research into the world and put it to use for the masses. Mordred thought that his apprentice was the one destine to accomplish what he could not... but he was not certain. He could not be certain, because he was too attached to the boy. That was why he had sent him away: in the hope that when he returned there would be some sign of maturity, some omen that he was ready to assume this awesome responsibility. Then Mordred could judge if he was ready to bear the burden of this awful and awe-full art.

A savage coughing jag tore him momentarily from his musings. He was ill again, and this time his lungs were clogged with thick, noxious phlegm. He could seldom raise it, however much he tried. When he _did_ manage to bring something up, it had the consistency of warm butter, and formed round beads of slime. His ribs ached, and his head felt hot and heavy, and he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

He might well do it, too. That was why he had to hurry. Riza was almost big enough, now. She was eleven, and her body was starting to show the first signs of womanly proportions. He was not blind to the small mounds raising themselves on her chest, nor to the newly feminine curvature of her hips under those ridiculous, modern skirts that the vain little creature had bought herself. The crown of her head almost reached his breastbone. She was growing.

Soon, she would be the custodian of his life's work; the one privileged to bear the secret of the most powerful and potentially terrible form of alchemy known to man. With that secret would come a responsibility. If he should die before Mustang returned, it would fall to his daughter to judge the boy's worthiness. She could not do that properly if she was bound by the affections of babyhood. By distancing her from him, by making it seem that he had left with no thought for her, by confiscating his letters, Mordred was ensuring future objectivity. He was guaranteeing that his research would not be passed on because of some foolish child's friendships.

He set down the needle next to the others, and eyed the little pot of ink. The hour was at hand.

_discidium_

Riza was looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her body was changing, and it both frightened and fascinated her. There were two aspects of the change that stood out most prominently. First, hair was growing in places where hair had no right to grow. Under her arms, thin wispy fuzz stood out against her white skin – though now, of course, it was hidden by her blouse. Between her legs, there was now a pale crop of curls. It looked so strange, and ugly. She had tried to cut it off with the kitchen scissors, but she could not remove it all, and it only grew back thicker than before. At least it was hidden beneath her combinations and her skirt.

The other change was harder to conceal. Her chest was swelling. Well, not _swelling_, exactly, though that was what she had thought at first. It was growing. Under each nipple, soft domes of flesh were forming. Riza was growing breasts.

She had always wondered, when she was younger, how a lady got breasts. Little girls didn't have them, but grown women did. Now she knew the answer: they grew in, just the same as grown-up teeth did. Still, the change was not a welcome one. They looked so odd, and small, and imperfect; and sometimes they ached a little, too.

Downstairs, she could hear Papa coughing. She tore herself away from the mirror. When he coughed like that, he was usually in a bad mood. His moods had been worse since Mr. Mustang had gone away.

The formality that had been so painful while the boy was here had now become a firm, almost vengeful habit. Her father's pupil had gone away without warning. He had packed up and left to have some grand, grown-up adventure, leaving Riza behind to cope with the housework and the cooking and the sick alchemist all on her own. He hadn't even said goodbye! He didn't care at all!

Riza tried to pretend that that only made her angry, but it simply wasn't true. Her heart was broken._ Why_ had he left? Where had he gone? Why, oh, _why_ hadn't he waited to say goodbye to her? Why didn't he write to her? Didn't he care about her at all anymore?

She touched the place where her left breast bulged up under her shirtwaist. She wouldn't blame him if he _didn't_ care, she reflected. She wasn't smart, or capable, and she wasn't even nice to look at anymore. Riza wasn't vain, but she had always been happy with her body... until now. The foreign changes, unexpected as they were, made her feel like a stranger in her own skin – a swelling, bulging, hairy stranger, at that. Her fragile self-confidence, which since before her mother's death had been shaken and battered repeatedly, was not equipped to cope with this new physicality, and so in a strange way Mr. Mustang's rejection of her made sense.

Riza turned away from the mirror. She couldn't stand in here all day. She had chores to do.

She went downstairs, instinctively skipping the bad step. She was just about to turn into the kitchen when her father's voice came around his half-opened study door.

"Riza, is that you?"

Who else would it be, she wondered. Mr. Mustang was gone, because he didn't care what happened to them. There was nobody else to come.

"Yes, Papa," she said softly.

"Come here."

He was sitting at his desk. A little tray was laid out before him, with strange-looking tools upon it. Riza found herself staring curiously, when she abruptly realized that that was not polite. She averted her eyes back to her shoes.

"Riza, I want to talk to you," Papa said. The sound of her name from his lips suffused the girl with a sudden warmth. All at once she did not feel so lonely. Papa was calling her by name!

"Yes, Papa," she said again.

"About alchemy."

Riza's heart hopped in her chest. Alchemy? Was he going to teach her alchemy? So many times she had envied Mr. Mustang, because in learning her father's art, he spent so much time with him. She had often wished that she were good enough to be taught, too, instead of merely having books of history or grammar thrust upon her with a curt order to read them. She had always studied so hard, both at school and now at home, and if Papa wanted to teach her alchemy, then her efforts were now to be rewarded.

"Riza, you know that my research is very special," Papa said. Riza nodded. His research was the most important thing in the world. As long as she could remember, he had always been working on it. When he was wrapped up in his research, there was an animated gleam in his eyes – an intensity that she did not see at any other time.

"My alchemy is... unique. There is nothing else like it, and there never has been," he went on. "Because it is unique, it is very, very valuable. People would steal it from me if they could. I need to protect it."

"Yes, Papa," Riza concurred. She felt happier than she had at any time in the five months since Mr. Mustang's heartless disappearance. Her father wanted to speak to her! He was talking about his research, his important, important research! To _her_!

"I can't... protect it on my own," Papa said, his voice wavering a little. "I'm getting old, Riza. You know I've been sick. Someday I'll die, and—"

"_No_, Papa!" Riza cried, before she could stop herself. Frightened tears prickled in her eyes. He couldn't die! She loved him! She needed him!

He clucked softly, reaching out as if to touch her cheek, but falling short of the mark. "That may not happen for many years," he said; "but it will happen. And when it does, I need to know that my research – my life's work – I need to know that it will be safe. You need to help me."

"Yes, Papa," Riza promised. "I'll help you."

A ghost of a smile touched his thin lips. "Good girl." He seemed to hesitate for a moment, his eyes moving up and down her body. Suddenly, Riza felt uncomfortable, and her insecurity flooded back. Did he find the bumps beneath her blouse repulsive? Could his keen eyes see the hair hidden beneath her clothing? Did he realize she was changing, morphing into something new and strange? But then his expression fixed itself resolutely.

"I have something to show you," he said, unrolling a large piece of parchment. It bore a line drawing in black: a transmutation circle surrounded by curves and arcs, and words that twisted and wove around each other. "This is my research."

"All of it?" Riza wondered, glancing at the shelves filled with journal books. To her, _those_ had always been her father's research, not this single strange pictograph.

"The important parts," Papa confirmed. "I want to put this picture in a safe place, where no one will ever find it unless you show it to them."

"I could hide it in my room," Riza offered.

For a moment, her father seemed to be in pain. Then he shook his head. "I will destroy this paper," he said; "but first I need to transfer the design."

"Where?" asked Riza.

"Onto your back."

She didn't understand. Her back? "You're going to draw on _me_?" she said incredulously, eyeing her father's fountain pen with doubt.

"Not... exactly. I'm going to give you a tattoo."

This was the longest conversation that he had had with her in as long as Riza could remember. The strange new familiarity made her bold. "What's a tattoo?"

Papa pushed his chair back from the desk and raised one leg so that it lay across the other. He rolled up the cuff of his trousers, and pulled down the top of his sock. "This is a tattoo," he said, pointing to his calf.

Riza stepped closer. There was an alchemy circle drawn in black on his skin. It looked just like the one on the study door.

"Go ahead, touch it," her father said. Timidly, Riza reached out, half-expecting to feel some ridge or groove where the lines were. There was nothing of the sort: the design felt no different from the rest of his skin. "I'm going to do that to your back."

"Won't it come off in the bath?" Riza asked, her curious stare disrupted as her father returned his foot to the ground.

"No." Papa indicated the tools beside him. "I'll use these needles to put the ink inside your skin. It will never wash out."

"N-never?" Suddenly, Riza wasn't sure that she liked this idea. After all, her body was now strange and ugly enough, without an enormous black drawing on her back.

"No. It will never come out. It will never be lost, or stolen. It will be safe," her father said emphatically. "You will keep it safe for me."

Riza squared her shoulders. She would be proud to do it, she decided. If she could help her father, if she could protect his important research... if, a small, selfish part of her was forced to admit, he would pay this much attention to her every day, instead of largely ignoring her... then she would do whatever it took.

"I'll keep it safe," she said stoutly, suppressing her apprehension. "I promise."

Then a miraculous thing happened. Her father smiled at her._ Smiled_. At _her_.

"I knew that I could count on you, _chibi-chan_," he said softly, using her all-but-forgotten pet name. At that moment, Riza's cup of happiness overflowed, and it took all of her self-control to maintain her composure instead of bursting into rapturous tears. "That's my brave girl."

He took Momma's measuring tape from the desk. "Turn around," he said. "I need to do some last-minute calculations, but we'll begin tomorrow. All right?"

Riza nodded, turning so that he could quickly measure the breadth of her shoulders and the length of her spine. Tomorrow, she thought jubilantly. Tomorrow, she wouldn't be a forgotten little nobody anymore! Tomorrow, she would matter to someone again! Tomorrow, she would help Papa protect his research! Tomorrow, he would love her again!


	70. Grim Epiphany

**Chapter 70: Grim Epiphany**

Riza watched, breathless with anxiety and excitement, as Papa prepared. First, he nailed his parchment with the complex image that would be his guide to the kitchen wall. Then he spread a clean bed sheet over the big table, smoothing it with care. He had brought one of the end tables from the parlour, and on it was set his tray of tools, a bottle of ink, a darkly stained wooden bowl, a basin, soap and a boar-bristle brush. Papa poured some of the ink into the bowl, and set three needles to soak. Then he put the kettle on to boil, rolled his sleeves up over his elbows, and turned to her.

"All right," he said, visibly bracing himself. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Papa," Riza exhaled. She glanced nervously at the tools. She wondered suddenly if this was going to hurt.

"Take off your shirt," Papa instructed.

"My shirt?" Riza yelped. He had told her last night not to wear any combinations today, and she already felt uncomfortably exposed with nothing under her clothes but a flimsy linen petticoat. Surely Papa didn't expect her to disrobe entirely!

"Yes. I'm putting it on your back, aren't I?" Papa said impatiently. "How am I supposed to apply it through a shirtwaist?"

There was an animated light in his eyes, and Riza realized that he was quivering slightly in anticipation. He was eager to begin, eager to spend time with her. Nervously, Riza unbuttoned her blouse, taking care to keep the two halves closed across her front.

"Hurry up, hurry up," her father muttered. "I've waited years. Years. Hurry up!"

Riza wanted to obey him, but she just couldn't. She didn't want him to see her nasty, swollen chest; the ugly little lumps that looked nothing like a grown woman's healthy round breasts. She couldn't bear the thought of showing her papa how awkward and inadequate she really was.

"Come on, take it off so that we can get started." Papa's agitation was growing. He seemed almost desperate, as if he were fighting to control a mounting hysteria.

"B-but—" Riza stammered helplessly.

He reached out and stripped the shirt away, tugging on first one arm and then the other as he yanked the garment from her. Riza was frozen for a moment in startled consternation, naked to waist. Then she hastily crossed her arms and curled in on herself, trying to cover herself as best she could.

Papa looked at her and rolled his eyes. "You have a mighty high opinion of yourself, haven't you?" he said disdainfully. "I've seen teats before, missy, and much prettier ones than yours. Now get up here and lie down on your stomach so that I can get started. I've waited too long to have any patience for prepubescent vanity."

His words seemed to strip away the last of Riza's dignity. She clutched her sparse bosom more tightly, her shoulders quaking with hurt and shame. She was obliged to use her arms to climb from a chair onto the table, and a cold tear of humiliation rolled down her cheek as she realized how exposed this left her. She smoothed her skirt with one trembling hand and stretched out on her belly, still trying to herself behind her hands.

From the corner of her eye she could see that Papa wasn't watching her anyway. He was at the sink, washing his hands and arms. The kettle began to whistle, and he poured the boiling water into the basin. Then he lathered up the boar-bristle brush and began to scrub Riza's naked back.

She gasped, stiffening a little as the coarse hairs rasped against her skin. Papa worked in swift vigorous circles that made her body move back and forth. Her head thumped against the table.

"P-Papa, that's too rough," she protested softly.

"You're covered in dead skin," her father said sourly. "Don't you ever bathe?"

Riza's insides twisted. She bathed every day; her arms were just too short to scrub her whole back, that was all.

When he was finished, Papa towelled her off.

"M-may I have a p-pillow?" Riza asked. Her brow was pressed against the unyielding wood of the table, and her head was starting to ache.

"No," Papa said. "I can't have you flexing your neck, now can I?"

"But it's uncomfortable," Riza whispered.

"So turn your head and lie on your cheek," he said. He was rubbing something that smelled strongly of alcohol into her skin. Riza obeyed, taking care to turn her head away from him so that he could not see the disappointed tears prickling in her eyes. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to be kind and cheerful, alight with excitement. He was supposed to call her _chibi-chan_ again, as he had yesterday. Instead, he was cross and abrupt, and she was half-naked, humiliated. She felt unclean and inadequate and utterly powerless.

Then Papa picked up a primed needle, and pierced her skin for the first time.

Riza stifled a surprise yelp. It pinched! It felt like the sting of a fat old wasp: a sharp piercing pain followed by dull chemically burning. Before Riza could react, her father stuck again, and again. After the first few punctures she stopped flinching with each one. She was neither comfortable nor relaxed, but she was no longer surprised.

"My alchemy is very dangerous," her father said presently, not even breaking his rhythm. "In the wrong hands, it could be used to bring great suffering. My alchemy could be used to kill people, Riza. That is why I must protect it. That is why _you_ must protect it."

Riza tried to speak, but she was afraid to open her mouth. She didn't think the sound would come out steadily. Papa was working perhaps two inches from where he had started, and the place where he had first pierced her skin was beginning to sting dreadfully.

"I have locked my secrets in a cipher," the alchemist went on. "I have hidden them well. This picture is a code. An exquisite code. No ordinary alchemist will be able to break it. It will take an extraordinary man – a man of learning and intelligence, a man who is able to look beyond the obvious – to unravel it."

A man of learning and intelligence, Riza thought, fixing the words in her mind.

"That isn't enough," Papa said. Riza focused intently on his words. They were distracting her from the mounting pain. "Intelligence is dangerous. The man must also be good. He must have noble intentions. He must have a plan, a way in which to use my alchemy to benefit the masses. My alchemy must be used to help people, not to harm them."

"Yes, Papa," Riza exhaled unsteadily. She screwed her eyes closed as the needle bit into her again and again and again and again and again.

"If I'm gone... if I die before I can pass on my research, then _you_ will have to judge who is worthy," he told her. "It is a grave responsibility, but you are a clever girl, and I know that you can make the right decision."

Riza raised her head and spun it 'round to look at him. She was a clever girl? She had heard that before; hundreds of times. Mr. Regnier had loved to say it, and at times she had almost believed him, but she had never heard those words come from her father. Papa thought that she was a clever girl?

"For goodness' sake, put your head down!" Papa scolded, pressing the back of her skull to guide her cheek back onto the tabletop. He worked in silence for a long time, as Riza grew more and more uncomfortable. There was a burning arc of agony on her back now, and the intensity of the pain blocked out the sharp pricking of the needle as it darted in and out of her flesh. At length, when the arc was nearly a circle, the man spoke again.

"I need to know that I can rely on you, Riza," he said. "You're all that I have. You _must _protect my research."

Riza wanted to promise that she would, that she'd do anything he wanted, that she would always, always protect it... but she was in too much pain. Hot tears squeezed out from beneath her eyelids. It hurt, it _hurt!_ She didn't want to cry out, but it hurt so much!

_discidium_

The smooth ivory flesh of his daughter's back was now red and inflamed. A brilliant starburst of luridly swollen tissue spread out from the centre of her back. At its centre, under tattered skin that was already beginning to peel, was the salamander array: the simple circle with its intertwining triangular glyphs that had taken Mordred three years to perfect. It had only taken six hours to transfer onto Riza's back. Looking at it now, while the girl stood in the middle of the kitchen quaking and sniffling softly, Mordred could scarcely resist the urge to touch it. He wanted to press his hands against the sigil, rendered here in a wholly new medium. He wanted to test it, to perform some task... but he had to resist. The tattoo was fresh, and during these early days would be prone to infection.

Besides, it wasn't finished yet. Not even close. The circle was its focal point – its foundation and the final piece of information that the heir to his knowledge would need. It was ironic that it was also the first part of the image to be imprinted upon his living canvas. Yet it was necessary. The rest of the tattoo would wind around this centrepiece.

"Very nice," Mordred said. It was an ugly sight now, with the damaged flesh around it, but he knew it would one day be beautiful. It would be glorious. "Up you get: we have work to do."

The girl's shoulders shook. A pitiful whimper welled up in the back of her throat. "It hurts, Papa," she sobbed softly. "It h-hurts so much!"

Of course it hurt, Mordred thought in annoyance. His legs were covered in absurd tattoos. He knew all too well how much it hurt. Couldn't she at least _try_ to stop snivelling? What they were accomplishing here was worth a little pain. They were immortalizing his life's work! How could she complain? _She_ was the one he had chosen to guard it for him. _She _was the one he was entrusting with everything he had ever accomplished.

"Yes, it hurts, and it will probably hurt a lot more before I'm through," he told her coolly. It wouldn't do to fawn over her: what if she should suggest that they _stop_? He had waited so long, planning and calculating. He could not bear any delay now. Not when he was so close. "Now hurry up and lie down."

She obeyed, quivering as she did, and still trying to hide her absurd little bosom as if it were some marvellous treasure. Mordred cast an irritated eye over her. Her face was pale and peaked, and there were shadows under her eyes. He reflected with a sort of dark amusement that she'd probably found it hard to sleep. The pain of the tattoo itself was probably enough to keep her awake – and if she _had_ chanced to sleep and then rolled onto her back...

Riza was waiting. She was gnawing on her lip, her eyes screwed tightly closed. Her hands were balled into tight fists.

Today, Mordred was going to work on the tendrils that rose from the top of the array: the tails of the intertwining serpents that would weave to and fro over the bearer's spine. At first glance, they would look almost like the horns of some mythical beast. Below the flame sigil, at the very base of the array in the area that he would work on tomorrow, small, stylistic crowns surmounted their heads with broad their gaping mouths. To the casual observer they were not snakes at all, but a chalice below, supporting his array, and twisting horns above.

He wetted a rag and wiped crusted trails of darkly clotted blood from the girl's back. She had bled surprisingly little yesterday, for the needles were sharp and her supple young skin was obviously more forgiving than his own tough hide.

The work would be more delicate today, for the serpents were not solid. They contained geometrical shapes that provided decoration and also a key to the role that the composer's musical score played in his code. Mordred fully expected to spend the greater part of the day working on this portion. He looked critically at the dainty back beneath him. It would be a thing of beauty, he thought, once his labour was complete.

_discidium_

Riza was in anguish. Her back was burning, and she knew it wasn't over yet. Yesterday, the pain had been bad. Today, it was intolerable. She had been awake through most of the night, burying her face in her pillow to smother screams of torment. It hurt, hurt, hurt, _hurt!_ Oh, if she'd known how much it was going to hurt, she never would have agreed; _never_! Why hadn't Papa told her that it was going to hurt like this?

He was washing his hands. She could hear him at the sink, but she could not see him. Her face was pressed against the table as tears of torment streamed quietly down her cheeks. She couldn't keep them back: they seemed to be her body's outlet for the agony rippling through its largest organ. It was all that Riza could manage to stay silent.

Papa set to work, his forearm resting on the small of her back today as his needle darted in, out, in, out, in, out. He was working on the bottom part of the design today, he had told her. Riza didn't care. She just wanted it to be over! She wanted the pain to go away! She wanted to sleep again. Maybe she even wanted to die, like Momma and Doctor Bella. Then she could go to a Better Place, and there would be no more pain. No more pain...

Her father's arm was rubbing the waistband of her skirt. Riza bit her lip, and moved her arm up to hide the side of her tiny breast. She had been half naked for two days now, since he had started work three mornings past. She couldn't put anything over her back, because the fires that even the lightest pressure sent into her chest were utterly intolerable. The humiliation of walking around in such a disgraceful state of undress was gnawing at Riza's maidenly modesty. She wondered if she would ever be able to look at herself in the mirror again. She was vile, and ugly, and wanton – a hideous, shameless creature who had sacrificed dignity to purchase surcease from further torture.

Papa made an annoyed noise. Obviously he didn't like the chafing of the fabric against his bare arm. He tried to adjust his position, his right hand still working rhythmically with the needle. He was moving lower and lower on her back now, and Riza stifled a tiny whimper of pain.

"Damn it!" Papa exclaimed sharply. He set down his needle. "I can't work with this tickling my arm. It's intolerable!"

Then he seized the waistband of Riza's skirt and yanked it downward, away from her waist. The top button burst off, flying across the room. Riza felt the cloth sliding down past her hips, away from her waist and the area where her father was working. Her petticoat followed the skirt, and suddenly her midriff and backside were bare, the garment uselessly bunched at her thighs. Riza shivered. Now she was practically _naked_! She couldn't help it: the shame and misery and disillusionment were too much for her, and she sobbed wretchedly.

Papa paused, and she could feel his eyes on the back of her neck. "I know it hurts," he said a little gruffly. "Take it like an adult. This won't last forever."

But as he started work again, and sympathetic twinges of torment streaked up her poor, denuded back, Riza felt certain that it _would_ last forever!

_discidium_

On the fourth day, Mordred began tattooing the words. If the skeleton of the design had been finicky and complex, the lines of the requiem were a level of artistry on some plane near sublimation. The tiny gothic writing – so easy to do on paper – was impossibly difficult to reproduce with a bamboo needle. Mordred bent low over Riza's back, labouring meticulously over it. His nostrils dragged in air tainted with the smells of blood and inflammation and ink. His hand moved repetitively: up and down, in and out.

He knew that this was more painful than anything he had yet done, for the flesh into which he was biting was already sore and swollen from the previous days' application of the core images. Riza was no longer the stoic, silent subject that she had been. Tiny, muffled noises of pain issued from her, and from time to time she would gasp or cry out, her back shaking with a spasm of reflexive agony. At such times, Mordred merely set his jaw and focused all the more diligently on the task at hand. He couldn't stop now. He couldn't afford to stop now. The pain wasn't important. He was almost finished.

After all, he told himself, he was miserable too. His arms ached and his hands were cramping. The stooped position made drainage from his clogged lungs even more difficult. Often he would cough fretfully over his work, and at times he even had to stop and fetch himself a glass of water. It was hard, miserable work, but he endured it.

His research, he knew, was the most important thing.

_discidium_

By the end of the seventh day, Riza was scarcely conscious. Yes, she could walk around, and maybe eat a little if Papa glared at her imperiously enough. She could stumble up the stairs and bury her face in her pillow and long quietly for death, but she couldn't think. She couldn't speak. She couldn't remember anything at all... except what it meant to be in pain.

There were no words for the torture raging on her back. No words for the hollow emptiness in her chest. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. The pain, the sharp, metallic smell of her own blood, the needles and the ink and her father's endless lecturing about intentions and action plans and good men. It was a nightmare from which there was no waking.

Riza wanted to run away. She wanted to spring up from the table and fly out the door, pelting up the hill to throw herself on her mother's grave and sob, begging Momma to come back and take the pain away. Or Doctor Bella. Had Doctor Bella still been here, she would have taken the pain away. She would have given Riza medicine to help her, something to heal her, _anything_ that would numb her back and soothe her soul and make this dark hell more bearable. But Momma was dead, and Doctor Bella was dead, and there was only Papa and his needles and his stern, commanding voice.

_discidium_

She writhed on the table, trying to shrink away despite the firm grip Mordred had on her arm.

"No!" Riza shrieked. "NO! Don't hurt me anymore, Papa! Please! _Please_ don't hurt me anymore!"

"Calm down," Mordred said firmly. "I'm almost finished. A few more hours, and we'll be done forever."

"_No_!" Riza wailed. She was caught in the throes of a panicked tantrum, and there was no reasoning with her. "I don't want to! I don't want to do this anymore! Stop it, stop it, stop it! It _hurts_! I don't want it to hurt anymore!"

Frantic sobs and quivering moans shook her form as she tried again and again to wrench away from him. It was the ninth day, and they were so near to competing the array! Just the very last portion of text, between the heads of the two serpents. Two more hours, three at the most, and it would all be over. Why couldn't the damned child have held out just a little longer?

"I know it hurts, you selfish little fool!" Mordred snapped. "Just hold your tongue and be still! I have to finish."

"No, no, no!" screamed the girl. "No! I don't want to! I don't want your stupid alchemy! I don't want to do this anymore! Leave me alone! I don't want you to hurt me again!" A concussive sob tore through her and the defiance broke as she collapsed into wretched sobs. "Please, please, Papa," she begged miserably. "Please don't hurt me anymore. Please. I'll be a good girl, I'll do anything, just please don't hurt me anymore!"

She wasn't moving any longer. Most likely she _couldn't_ move, worn out by her infantile tantrum and the physiological demands of the tattoo. Mordred released his grip and backed away. He couldn't complete the tattoo like this. He had to shut her up.

He picked up the bottle of paregoric that was lying at hand in case his cough got out of control again. It was the same stuff, he knew, that laudanum was made of. He uncorked the vial and sniffed it. Yes, it would sedate her... if he gave her enough of it.

"Here," he said, trying and failing to make his voice sound soothing. "This will take the pain away."

Riza raised her head an inch or two off of the rumpled sheet, bleary, torment-glazed red eyes searching for his face. Mordred snatched up a spoon and filled it, forcing it between her teeth. She grimaced at the foul taste, swallowing the drug. It wasn't enough, Mordred knew. That dose would take the edge off of his cough, but it would do nothing for pain. He gave her another spoonful, and another. A third. A fourth. Then he merely pressed the bottle to her lips.

"Drink!" he commanded. Riza obeyed desperately. He snatched the bottle away before she could take in enough to kill her. At least, he hoped that that was so. It would be a terrible, terrible thing if she poisoned herself now, when he was so close to success.

Presently, her body began to relax. A vague, vacant film formed over her eyes. Mordred watched wonderingly as she slipped into oblivious slumber right there on the kitchen table, her panic forgotten as she succumbed to the siren-song of the drug. When he was sure that she was unconscious, shallow and sluggish breaths tugging at her chest, he straightened her body, picked up his needle, and set to work again.

It was almost complete. His life's work was almost complete.

_discidium_

For four days after the tattooing ended, Riza drifted in and out of a delirium of wretched anguish. Fever raged through her young body, a natural response to the inflammation that spread across her back. She had vague memories of nightmarish delusions, of her father bending over her and touching the raw, flaking skin, checking the fidelity of his design. Sometimes he would force her to sit up, and pour water or broth down her throat. Once, when she was screaming and sobbing and would not calm down, he even gave her medicine again, and for a while she was blissfully high, floating in a fog where there was no pain.

It was some time during the fourth night that Riza came to an awful realization. It happened shortly after she had awakened from uneasy slumber with a hoarse scream. Papa had come running, a basin of cold water and a clean cotton rag in hand. Instead of placing the cool compress on her aching, fiery forehead, however, he had started to clean the flesh around the tattoo, wiping away flakes of rejected skin and examining his handiwork with care.

Riza waited for him to speak. For him to say something to her. Her heart ached for some sign that he cared for her, for some small word of comfort. A single syllable of consolation would have eased her ravaged soul and taken away the worst of the suffering.

When he did speak, his words were not addressed to her at all.

"Beautiful," he murmured rapturously, his fingertips brushing the tender flesh and sending fresh torment through her young body. "Exquisite. Perfect."

Riza's universe seemed to collapse around her. He didn't care. He didn't care about her at all. All these years – almost as long as she could remember – she had strived for his love. She had struggled and fought and laboured in the hope that one day she might be worthy of the affection that he had lavished upon her when she was small. In the hope that one day he'd hold her in his strong arms again, and plant kisses on her forehead, and tell her how beautiful she was, how precious, how prized. How much he loved her.

That was never going to happen. He didn't care about her. No, she realized. It was worse than that. He had done worse than ignore her. He had wronged her. Violated her. The torture of these last two weeks... that was something no one could do to someone they loved. It was not even something that one could do to a stranger; inflict such pain, cause such suffering. He wasn't indifferent to her. He hated her.

And maybe she deserved it... but after this, she knew, she could never think of him as her loving papa. He wasn't the man who had dandled her on his knee, who had read her stories and sang her songs, taken her for walks in the woods, and played Fuhrer and Special Soldier with her for hours on end. He was someone else: a stranger in her papa's skin. And she was afraid of him.

"We've done well, Riza," he was saying, a rapturous wonder in his voice. His hand was trembling with the enervation of victory, and it was clear that he was nearing ecstasy as he realized that he had, at long last, accomplished what he had set out to do. "It's safe. My research is safe. I've finally found a way to pass on my legacy, to protect it." He laughed in quiet amazement. "I've done it, Riza! I've done it at last, haven't I?"

She swallowed hard. "Y-yes," she said softly, because she knew that he expected her to answer. "Yes, you've done it... Father."


	71. The Die is Cast

**Chapter 71: The Die is Cast**

Spring came earlier in Central than it did in Hamner. Roy was glad. With the weather turning warm, he no longer had to spend a quarter of his precious wages on coal to heat his little room. He didn't need as much food, either, without the need to stay warm. He wanted to save enough money to buy a new pair of shoes, for his were wearing thin, and would soon be too small. Really, he could use clothes, too, but that was not an expense that he could really justify, however short his trousers were growing and however tatty his undergarments.

He worked six days a week at the publishing house, hauling crates of books and sweeping the floors of the presses. He worked twelve hours Monday through Friday, and eight hours on Saturday – at the end of which he would be given his four hundred precious _sens_ and sent on his way with a curt word of praise from the foreman. On Thursday nights, he would come back to the tenement to find Maes waiting on the step, in full uniform as always, eager to buy him supper and a bracing glass of whiskey and to babble merrily about the week. Though the cadet could not always get away on Sundays, depending upon the evolutions scheduled for his class, he came when he could. When he couldn't, Roy would just have a nice, long nap instead.

Overall he was, if not exactly _happy_ with his life, more or less content. There were some small challenges, of course. The most prominent of them was the struggle to keep himself clean and presentable. There was a bathtub that all the tenants shared, so personal cleanliness was no more than a little inconvenient. The question of his clothes was more difficult. Roy couldn't wash them properly in a bath: he needed a washboard and a mangler, and there was absolutely no provision for this need. There were washerwomen, who took other peoples' laundry for a fee, but he couldn't really afford that – and in any case, he couldn't chance having his few poor garments misplaced or stolen.

Finally, he found a family in his building who owned a washtub and a board, and who were willing to let him use it for five _sens_ a go. Though cheaper by far than farming out the chore, this cost was a deterrent from changing as often as Roy wanted to. He generally did the laundry every second Saturday, kneeling in his neighbour's cramped kitchenette while a passel of ravenous, jaundiced children rolled around him, playing with one another's toes because they had no other toys. Since he owned five presentable shirts (two of which were hand-me-downs from Maes), and only two pairs of trousers (the third having been torn beyond repair in a mishap at the publisher's), he smelled almost perpetually of perspiration and the black bean soup that was the primary source of protein in his subsistence diet.

It wasn't so bad, he told himself, and looking at those around him he knew that it could be a lot worse. There were the families with sickly, starving babies. The old women with no one to care for them. The cripples and the homeless blind who begged on street corners. The small businessmen buried in debt and struggling just to keep afloat. There were the girls who worked down in River Landing Park, selling pleasure to soldiers and labourers just to buy bread. There were the opium eaters, slaves to laudanum or the black crystals smoked in long pipes, or even to the colourless morphine that had to be injected directly into the vein. No, working like a dog and sleeping in a hole in the wall and eating two sparing meals a day was infinitely preferable to any of those options.

And now, with the warm weather, there was no reason not to be content. He still rose before the sun, but when he left work at eight in the evening there it was there to light the weary walk home. He no longer had to bundle up in his inadequate coat, or wake to keep the heater going through the night. It was nice. It seemed, too, that he was no longer quite so tired all the time.

So it was that one Sunday, when Maes was occupied with drilling for some sort of upcoming inspection, Roy bestirred himself and left the tenement, bound for the core of the city.

The river was the dividing line that sliced Central in twain. On the south side were the warehouses of commerce and the towering smokestacks of industry, the dreary slums and the proletariat townhouses and the budding new suburbs filled with lower-middle-class people and the families of low-ranking officers and high-ranking NCOs. On the north side stretched the military cargo yards and the munitions works, the vast barracks complexes and firing ranges and fenced-off drilling yards and the broad parade grounds on the outskirts. The Presidential District with its decadent mansions and lavish systems of private parkways spread out to the west, and the upper middle-class neighbourhoods. To the east was Central University, the quaint homes of the academia, and the dormitories that housed the wealthier students.

The difference in atmosphere as Roy crossed the river was palpable, and almost refreshing. No less obvious but far more disconcerting was the change in the way that other people regarded him as he walked. In the poor districts, he was part of the background: just another thin, shabby kid who didn't seem to have a place anywhere in the world except as a thread in the tapestry of grim city life. Here, he felt like an intruder: some mangy verminous thing that had crawled up into the daylight where it didn't belong. A woman walking with two sweet-looking little girls in lace-edged frocks hurried them across the street when he drew near. More than one soldier shot him a suspicious look. One grey-haired captain stopped to shoot him a pitying glance, fingering something in his pocket almost thoughtfully. Roy wondered just how threadbare he looked.

By the time he found Central Headquarters, Roy was too self-conscious and uncomfortable to take in his surroundings. He scarcely realized that he was crossing the broad plaza before the enormous building from which all of the nation was controlled. It barely occurred to him that it was from within these walls that the destiny of Amestris was determined. He passed the rippling banners bearing the national dragon. He slipped through the great doors. In the foyer, he froze.

What was he doing here? He didn't belong here. He was just a country bumpkin, trying to scrape a living in the big city and not quite succeeding. He had no business here.

"What do you need?" the commissionaire at desk asked blandly. "If you're here for a hearing, the courtrooms are in D Wing."

"No, I..." Roy's mouth was dry. Why had he come here? Was he insane? "I came to ask about getting a State Alchemist's licence."

The woman looked up from her clipboard, adjusting her neat military cap. Roy hadn't realized there were women in the military. "A State Alchemist's licence? It's not a street vendor's permit, you know. You can't just 'get' one."

As a matter of fact, Roy _didn't _know, he thought sourly. That was why he had come to ask. He didn't want to seem impudent, however, so he nodded. "I see... well, how does one go about it, then?"

She looked him over superciliously. "Are you lost, honey?" she asked, vaguely mocking. "I think you're on the wrong side of the tracks."

"Tracks?" Roy echoed. The railroad yards were on the south side of the river. Was that what the woman meant?

"Look, why do you want to know this, anyways?" she asked, suddenly suspicious.

"I want to become a State Alchemist," Roy told her. Why else would he want this information?

"I'm sorry, but we don't take them at twelve."

Roy squared his shoulders and tried to maintain his cracking veneer of dignity. "Please," he said. "Isn't there any information you can give me? I've come a long way."

The woman studied him yet again, as if trying to divine whether he was serious, or merely wasting her time. He wasn't sure which conclusion she ultimately reached, but she snorted and jerked her head at him. "Third floor, turn left, straight down the hall. State Alchemists fall under General Haman's jurisdiction. His staff should be able to answer your questions." She scribbled something illegible on a small card. "There's your pass. It expires in an hour, so watch your time."

Roy thanked her and made his way towards the stairs. On the third floor, he quickly found the door bearing the nameplate _General Edmund Q.D. Haman, Twisted Jade Alchemist_. Roy braced himself and stepped across the threshold.

A young man with a shock of strawberry-blonde hair occupied a desk in the anteroom. Behind him three doors led through to inner offices. One, gaping wide, revealed a small conference room with a round table. One opened on an empty office with numerous desks piled high with neglected paperwork. The third door was tightly closed.

"You're in the wrong department," the man said. "The courtrooms are over in D Wing."

Roy found himself bristling a little. Why did they all assume he was in trouble with the law? He held out the pass that the commissionaire had given him. "I want to become a State Alchemist," he said.

The man laughed; a scornful, barking sound that made Roy cringe. "So does every hack and circus freak in the city. What makes you so special?"

Roy had no answer to this, but the soldier obviously grew rapidly weary of watching him gaping helplessly. "Never mind: I don't care anyway. Here's the recruitment pamphlet, here's the application form for the exam and this year's test dates. This is a standard injury and liability waiver. If you have any questions, don't come to me."

He thrust a fistful of forms into Roy's hands, and then turned back to his work. The youth mumbled his thanks and turned to beat a retreat. When he did, he nearly ran straight into a towering mountain of humanity who had come up behind him with surprising stealth.

"You're in the wrong area," a deep voice said, and Roy was vaguely distracted by the wagging of a sharply waxed black moustache. "The courtrooms are in D Wing."

He didn't dare protest, nor did the huge, muscular soldier give him a chance. He brushed past and approached the desk, where the sergeant had sprung to attention.

"At ease, Huxley. I realize it's Sunday, but is the general in?"

"Yes, sir, Major! He is, sir!" the NCO barked crisply. "Shall I tell him you're here, sir?"

The enormous man brushed past the desk and shoved open the closed door. Around his brawny bulk, Roy could just see a heavy mahogany desk and a thin, saturnine man sitting behind it, a pen in one hand and a cigar in the other. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the large major snapped into a sharp salute and spoke without preamble.

"Word from the east, General!" he announced, not bothering to modulate his voice. "There's been a retaliatory incident."

"Retaliatory?" the general echoed. His voice was reedy and refined, like pure olive oil or expensive cane syrup. "Retaliatory to what?"

"To the unfortunate death of the child in the northern Kanda region," the major told him. "There was a riot last night. The desert filth stormed our storehouses in the larger town and killed a pair of warrant officers and the lieutenant in charge. The occupying troops are preparing for further conflict."

"Indeed?" Haman mused. "Well. How unfortunate. It looks like we may have to crush the scorpion in our yard after all."

"Yes, General. It looks like war."

"Interesti..." The man's voice trailed off as he cocked his head to one side, thus allowing him to see around the major's tremendous form. His eyes fixed on Roy and he cleared his throat. "Huxley," he said pointedly.

"Sir, yes, sir!" the sergeant said. He stood again, waving Roy impatiently off. "Go on, get out of here!" he hissed. "Get out of here!"

Roy didn't know what to do but obey. As he retreated, he couldn't help hearing General Haman say tetchily; "These damned savages, Gran. They won't accept law and order, won't bend to our efforts to civilize them, defy us at every turn... and they wonder why some poor little soldier gets a little trigger happy. They'll pull us into civil war, the dirty jackals! Well, we'll deal with them..."

_discidium_

Back in his room, Roy cut himself a piece of bread, sopping it in cold bean broth. He nibbled at it as he sifted through the papers that he had brought from Military Headquarters. There was an explanation of the examination requirements: a written component, a practical demonstration that involved either presentation of research results or an extemporaneous display of alchemical skill, a psychological profiling and, at the discretion of the committee, a physical examination. It all sounded very complicated and a little daunting, but he could surely...

His eyes fell on the application form, and his heart sank. All hope of taking the exam this summer ebbed away in a miserable instant. There was an examination fee.

To sit the exam – only to _sit _it, with no guarantee of passing – the charge was fifteen thousand _sens._ Fifteen_ thousand_. To an all-but-friendless fifteen-year-old who earned four hundred _sens_ a week, it might as well have been fifteen million. He'd never scrape together that much money. Never.

_discidium_

"Maybe you could enlist?" Maes suggested, making an obvious effort to cheer up his friend. "You know, lie about your age."

"Don't they check your records?" Roy mumbled, staring at his almost untouched supper.

"Well, yeah... but maybe they'd let it slide?"

"I don't look sixteen," argued the younger youth sadly. "I don't even look _fifteen_. I hate—" He stopped himself just in time, and shook his head.

Maes frowned a little, leaning forward. "Are you okay, buddy?" he asked.

Roy was trying too hard to keep from crying to trust himself to answer. He was tired and overwrought, he had spent the whole day slaving away in a hot warehouse, and his job paid barely enough to live off of. The last few days had been tainted by the knowledge that his dream was an impossibility. And when he looked at himself in the tarnished mirror in the common water closet at the end of the hall, all he saw was a pale, skinny kid who had deluded himself into thinking he could be a State Alchemist.

"Roy, look. Money's not a problem," Maes said. "I mean yeah, it's a problem, but it's nothing we can't fix. Between your wages and my _per diem_ we've got six hundred _sens_ a week, don't we?"

"I'm not taking your money..."

"Six hundred _sens_ a week. That's twenty-four hundred a month. You only need seven hundred for rent; that leaves seventeen hundred. So—"

His optimism was sickening. Roy glared at him. "So if I don't eat for nine months, and if I steal your _per diem_, then I'll have enough money to take the exam. Except by then it'll be long past."

"They have it every year," Maes said. "And yes, I realize you need to buy food and things, but it'll just take a little longer, that's all."

Roy could tell that his morose attitude of defeat was hurting his buoyant friend, but he just couldn't stop. The problem seemed so insurmountable. He was so discouraged, so weary, so worried. He had to accomplish his goal, and he had to do it in the next four months.

His year of exile was inching towards its end, and he was anxious to return to Hamner. He was worried sick about Riza, all alone with her austere father. Yet if he didn't have proof that he was doing something with his life, he knew that he didn't dare go back. His sensei would not be impressed to hear that he was a stock-boy working sixty-eight hours a week and living in a miserable little room in the poorest quarter of Central, using his alchemy for nothing but patching things up for his neighbours in exchange for cabbage soup or a couple of eggs or merely their goodwill. That he _meant_ to do something with his life, that he _wanted _to become a State Alchemist, these goals meant nothing. Intentions were meaningless. Actions were everything.

"Maybe I should try it," he whispered. "I could _try_ to enlist."

Suddenly, Maes' face took on a look of fear. "You can't do that!" he said suddenly, though he was the one who had suggested it in the first place.

"Why not? The military pays well, doesn't it? How much does a corporal earn?"

"Eight hundred a week," Maes said; "but Roy..."

Eight hundred a week? That was double what he was making now. _Double_! The thought of such riches was turning Roy's head. What he couldn't do with eight hundred _sens_ a week... He did a quick calculation. Why, in five months he'd have earned well over fifteen thousand!

"And they'll feed me and house me," Roy added, thinking aloud. And if Maes was serious about contributing his _per diem_, too, then it would take less than _four_ months...

No, he told himself firmly. He couldn't take Maes' money. It wasn't right. It was charity. Hawkeye-sensei felt that charity made one less of a man, and Roy had to agree. He didn't want handouts, not even from Maes.

"They'll send you to the front!" Maes yelped.

"They didn't send _you_ to the front," argued Roy.

"Into the field, then. There's war in the south and the west, and..." The cadet's voice dropped low so that none of the other patrons of the shabby restaurant could hear him. "And there's rumours. You've heard about all these riots in Ishbal?"

"Yes," Roy said. Having been left curious by what he'd overheard in General Haman's office, Roy had read about the unrest in the newspapers that he used as cleaning rags in the warehouse. There had been rioting in Ishbal: fighting in the streets and acts of terrorism against military buildings and personnel. They were isolated incidents, the _Gazette _claimed, and the military had the situation under control.

"Well, the guys figure there's going to be a war," Maes said. "Can you believe that? A civil war!"

"Ishbal isn't Amestris," Roy argued.

"No, but they're our province now, aren't they?" hissed Maes. "You don't want to get shipped off to the desert, do you? To fight against a bunch of nomads who have Amestrian citizenship? You can't enlist."

"But you said—"

"I know what I _said_, but you can't do it!" Maes told him. "Besides, how do you expect to study? Do you know how much work an NCO has to do? Well? Do you? There's drilling and training, mess duty, guard duty, executive duty. You'll be digging breastworks and shoring up trenches and marching and shooting and peeling potatoes. How're you going to find time to get ready for this exam? It's supposed to be really hard, Roy. They only take one or two new State Alchemists every year, you know, and at fifteen thousand _sens_ a try, you've got to give it your best!"

"What do you suggest I do, then?" Roy snapped, a little exasperated.

"The Academy," Maes said. "Apply to the National Academy. All you need is written permission from a parent, saying you're allowed to serve even though you're not sixteen yet, and the endorsement of someone with a rank of colonel or higher. If you start this fall, you'll be the year below me. We'll have so much fun!"

"I thought cadets have a lot of work, too," Roy argued.

"Not like NCOs!" Maes said. "And anyway, half of it's academic. You could even take classes in alchemy. _University classes_, Roy. It'd help you prepare."

Roy shook his head. "But I don't have any parents," he said.

"So?" Maes challenged. "I'm sure your sensei could sign."

"He doesn't want to see me again until my year is over," Roy reminded him. "And anyway, he... he wouldn't like it if he knew I wanted to join the military."

"So we'll forge his signature, then!" Maes said. "I'll write to my old colonel, and see if he wouldn't mind sponsoring your application. Unless you know somebody who'd do it?"

"No, I don't know anybody," Roy said. Then, abruptly, a thought occurred to him. He _had_ known a high-ranking military officer, once upon a time. "Actually, Maes, I think I do..."


	72. Sage Advice

**Chapter 72: Sage Advice**

Brigadier General Grumman had only been in Central for six days, having just returned from a six-month tour of duty under General Kroll in South City. Though he had seen very little action, his one excursion to the front had turned into an all-out firefight. When the commanding colonel had fallen, Grumman had taken charge of the troops, egging them on and turning a frenetic exercise in defence into a furious offensive that had driven the Aerugans back across the border with their rifles on their backs and the devil on their heels.

That had been two months ago, and that small victory had been the last push that the officer with his impeccable record had needed to obtain a fresh promotion. He had returned home victorious and yesterday had been personally commended and decorated by the young Fuhrer himself. It was all a little inconvenient.

Still, Grumman was glad he'd been there to save his boys. Well, not _his_ boys, exactly, but now-deceased Colonel Schultz's boys. They never would have made it out of that corner alive without good strong leadership. That made up for the bother of being hailed as a hero and pestered by reporters from the _Central Gazette_, who were desperate for a positive angle to write up for once. So, as he sat in the slightly stagnant-smelling living room of his handsome flat overlooking the riverside parks of the Presidential District, he reflected that life was, after all, not so bad.

Grumman sipped at his glass of sherry, plucking at his moustache with one absent hand. On his lap sat an obituary clandestinely clipped from a copy of the _East City Star_ that Grumman had had Sergeant Falman unearth for him from the military archives. It announced the death of one Isabella Greyson, MD, in the town of Hamner in the Eastern Province. She had died in some sort of accident last summer. That explained why Grumman had had no letters regarding his granddaughter in the intervening months.

He was worried about her. From the occasional epistles he had received from the physician he knew that she was growing quickly. She was intelligent and studious and quiet. Beyond that, Grumman knew nothing. Often in the years since his beloved daughter's death the soldier had longed to hop on an east-bound train and rattle back across the vast miles to see his little sweetpea. He loved Riza so much that sometimes his slowly stagnating memories of her made his soul ache with emptiness, but he had never worked up the courage to visit her. He remembered all too vividly the terrible anguish of her father; the wrath and desolation that Grumman had raised out of his son-in-law. Mordred wanted nothing to do with him, and he had made his wishes quite clear. A sense of honour and a desire to respect the alchemist's autonomy in his own home had kept Grumman away all these years. That, and a firm knowledge that he had made the situation worse, not better, for Mordred and the two children.

With the doctor's death, his last tie with the family had been severed. The stipend he'd paid for the upkeep of the little boy living with his son-in-law had long ago ceased to be sent. Grumman had tried to continue even after Lian's death, but month after month the bank draft had been mailed back, shredded wrathfully. After almost a year, the soldier had given up. Obviously Mordred was not interested in forgiving him. Without Lian's upkeep in the hospital, anyhow, Grumman reckoned the family finances were not in need of his monthly pittance. Still, that final rejection still stung...

The harsh jangle of the telephone dragged Grumman off the sofa and over to where the unsightly brown box hung on the wall. The building in which he lived boasted all of the modern conveniences, but this one struck him as a modern _inconvenience_. It allowed acquaintances and lady friends and, worst of all, higher-ups to invade his home on a whim. Grumman was a naturally ebullient man, but there were times when he valued his privacy. Nights like this, when he was reflecting upon his dead child and the remains of his fractured family, constituted precisely such a time.

"Grumman," he said shortly, lifting the cone-shaped ear piece and speaking into the blossom-like receiver.

"Brigadier General, sir? It's Keppel."

"Ah." Keppel was the door-man who ensured the privacy and security of the building's residents. Though he was pedantic and at times rather snobbish, Grumman quite liked him. He was a man with scruples. "What is it?"

"There are two... that is to say, there's a fourth-class cadet and his... and, ah, a young _boy_ asking to see you."

Grumman frowned. A fourth-class cadet and a young boy? "Did they give any names?" he queried.

"One moment, sir." There was a muffled noise of voices. "Cadet Hughes, Brigadier General," Keppel said.

Hughes? Hughes? The name niggled in some corner of Grumman's mind, but ultimately he came up with nothing. It was a common enough name, after all. He might be thinking of anyone. Part of Grumman wanted very much to have the doorman send the lad away so that he could return to his sherry and his brooding, but on the other hand that was precisely what any _other_ Brig. Gen. would do in such a situation. Flaunting convention was Grumman's guilty pleasure, and he did not often have opportunities to indulge in his secret vice.

"No, send him up, Keppel," he said. "Tell him to look sharp: it doesn't do to keep the brass waiting!"

"Very good, sir. Shall I detain his... companion here?"

"Companion? Oh, the boy." (What on earth did that mean? Why would any boy, young or otherwise, want to see him?) "No, send them both up. And give my regards to Mrs. Keppel."

"Yes, Brigadier General. Thank you, sir," the doorman said. Then with a crackle of static and a squeak of a hinge, the line went dead.

Grumman hung the earpiece from its arm and furrowed a pensive brow. What business did a fourth-class cadet and his mysterious companion of whom the stolid Keppel so obviously disapproved _possibly_ have with an aging officer?

He lived on the fourth floor, so he had to wait a good seven minutes, but at last there came a knock on the door. Grumman opened it to be greeted with the predictable spectacle of a lanky young man in full field uniform, saluting as if his very life depended upon rigidity of limbs and straightness of spine.

"Brigadier General Grumman, sir!" the lad said crisply, his glasses glinting in the light from within Grumman's flat. "Cadet Fourth Class Maes Hughes, sir."

Grumman reciprocated the salute, not quite so emphatically. "At ease, Cadet," he said. To his surprise, Hughes took him at his word, relaxing into an indolent stance that showed none of the anxious formality usually characteristic of first-year cadets. There was something familiar about the boy's coarse black hair and easy grin, and once again Grumman found himself thinking of Riza. He shook off the sensation as quickly as he could. "What brings you here at this time of the night? Shouldn't you be on campus?"

"Thursday night's evening furlough for me," Hughes told him. "Sir," he added. "We wondered if you'd have a quick word with us, maybe?"

He glanced sideling at his companion, and Grumman noticed him for the first time. He was, indeed, a young boy: a thin thing maybe fourteen or a tallish thirteen. His clothes were shabby and rather too short, but they were clean and pressed. He was without a cap, and his dark hair was straight and very fine. His face had an anemic pallor, and the exotic slope of his dark eyes spoke of some measure of Xingese heritage. Grumman had seen him before. His eyes narrowed.

"You're Roy... Roy..." He groped fruitlessly for the surname, but his mind was shouting. Riza's boy! It was the child the Hawkeyes had taken into their family! The promising young orphan for whom Grumman had paid seven thousand _sens _a month!

"Roy Mustang, sir," the boy said. "It's... it's very good to see you, sir."

"Come in, come in!" Grumman said, trying not to sound too eager and failing spectacularly. He hurried both boys inside and closed the door. "Have a seat, please! Can I get you any refreshment? Coffee? Tea? Sherry?"

Roy started to politely decline, but Hughes interjected. "Do you have any milk, sir?" he asked. "We'd both appreciate a glass."

Grumman was nobody's fool. The strapping cadet probably would've been happier with a couple ounces of single malt scotch, but it was plain that his skinny little companion could do with a little milk. He went to the kitchen and returned with two tall glasses of the nourishing fluid. "Cheers!" he said, hefting his own cup. To his surprise, Cadet Hughes tucked contentedly into the milk, while young Roy Mustang eyed the sherry covetously before taking two long, hungry gulps from his glass.

"Now, tell me all the news!" Grumman said. "How's my granddaughter?"

"I don't know, sir," Roy said, looking vaguely ashamed. "I haven't seen her since November."

"Haven't seen her? Why not?" Grumman asked.

"I've... I... I'm not living there anymore," Roy said. "I'm a journeyman now, so... I'm staying in the city. Riza won't... she hasn't been answering my letters, so I'm not sure how she is."

"Oh." To claim that Grumman wasn't disappointed would have been a bald-faced lie, but he tried not to show it, grinning tremendously instead. "You're a journeyman – what trade did you settle upon?"

"I'm an alchemist," said young Mustang. "That is, I know a little alchemy. Sensei wanted me to go out on my own and find my place in the world; to decide what I want to do with my life."

"That's why we're here, sir," Hughes said. "He wants to be a State Alchemist."

The younger boy looked startled by his friend's brazenness. His pallid cheeks flushed abruptly. "I only said I _might_ want to _try..._"

"Don't listen to him, General!" said the cadet happily. Grumman suppressed a reciprocal grin. He liked this lad: even in the presence of a higher-up whom most of his compatriots would have feared, Hughes was cheerful and unabashed. "He wants it. He'd make a damn fine State Alchemist, too – if you'll pardon my language, sir."

Grumman looked at young Mustang, who was stalwartly refusing to meet anyone's eye. He looked entirely too young to be a journeyman, much less a State Alchemist. Still, there had to be something positive that Grumman could say to the boy.

"Well, if my son-in-law taught you, then I'm sure the military would be proud to have you," he said with effort. "And if you know all of his secrets, you're a sure shot for the exam."

Roy looked up in surprise. "I... I'm... you know his secrets, sir?" he stammered.

"Well, I've seen what he can do, if that's what you mean," Grumman said. "I'm not an alchemist, of course, so I'm damned – if you'll pardon _my_ language, Cadet – if I know how he does it. Then again, it seems to be the popular consensus that what he does is theoretically impossible."

"It's possible," Roy said. "I don't know how he does it, but I've seen him do it."

"So have I," agreed the officer. "I wonder why he didn't teach you. What's the point of having students if you aren't going to give them your secrets?"

"I think he wants to," the boy said, sounding as if he wanted to convince himself as well as Grumman. "I'm just not ready yet."

"Hah! And who decided that? He may be your teacher, my boy, but Mordred Hawkeye has an unduly inflated sense of self."

"He promised he _would_ teach me," Roy argued softly, springing, as Grumman had expected him to, to his sensei's defence. "I just need to decide what I want to do with my life, and then I need to start doing it. When I can show him I've done that, I can come back, and he'll decide if I'm worthy."

He cast a small glance at his friend, as if looking for encouragement. The cadet smiled, adjusting his spectacles as he leaned forward to set his glass on the coffee table.

"That's actually why we're here, sir," he said. "See, obviously the State Alchemist exam's difficult, and it's expensive to take, too, so maybe it's not a great idea for Roy to take it _this_ year. I mean, next year would be better: it'd give him a chance to study and maybe to learn this flame alchemy stuff that's supposed to be so amazing."

"I'm inclined to agree, my boy," Grumman said, plucking at his moustache. "I've seen the practical exam, and believe you me, you need to pull out some very impressive stuff to even have a chance. If you can manage Mordred's little trick, you'll floor them, but otherwise I just can't see you succeeding."

The youth looked like he had been caught in the gut with a combat boot. "Oh..." he choked out.

"Well, do you want me to be honest with you, or shall I treat you like a child who has to be sheltered from the truth?" Grumman asked bluntly. "State Alchemists are no run-of-the-mill practitioners. There's one who can transmute bullets from his own body. One is a physician, and his research is so dangerous and extraordinary that it's one of the military's best-kept secrets. There's a woman who can conjure cyclones out of thin air, and General Haman himself can form nephrite projectiles out of milk – or bone. You need to be very sure of yourself if you plan to try for a licence."

"Yes, sir," Mustang said softly. "I suppose it _would_ be better to wait until I've finished my education."

"I would say so," Grumman agreed.

"But sensei won't let me come back until I've done something to show what I want to do with my life," the boy went on. "I thought of enlisting, but Maes suggested..."

He trailed off awkwardly, and Hughes grinned. "I suggested he try for the National Academy. I mean, he's bright, he's brave, and he'd be good officer material even if he didn't get State certification. But of course, sir, he needs an officer to sponsor him."

"I thought maybe... if you didn't mind..." Roy mumbled.

"Hmm. Well, now, State Alchemist isn't my area," said Grumman; "but I do know a thing or two about officer material. Tell me, lad. Why do you want to join the military?"

"Well... we're surrounded by enemies, sir. Hostile countries who would destroy us if they had the chance. The military protect our people. Soldiers suffer and die so that ordinary folks don't have to," Mustang said. "If I could help protect Amestris, and keep our towns and people safe, that would be an honourable thing, wouldn't it?"

"Perhaps," Grumman acknowledged. "So you want to be the ransom for the welfare of the masses. Some would call that laudable indeed. Is it your only reason?"

"No, sir," said the boy. He looked vaguely ashamed, as if this were something he had never admitted before, even to himself.

"Well, then, what else?" the officer prompted.

"The military... the soldiers don't always do a good job, sir," Roy whispered. "Not all of them, but... village constables, for example. They're supposed to help people, keep people safe. Instead, they're hard and sometimes they're cruel. Or the poor people. Why doesn't the military help the poor? The military runs the country: they collect taxes and make laws. Shouldn't they protect their own people? Not just from Aerugo and Creda, but from hunger and poverty, too. They aren't doing it, and that'll never change unless they get some good officers who are willing to _make_ it change."

Grumman stared at him. For such a young man, these observations were shockingly profound and eerily accurate. A fond smile touched the old soldier's lips. "Well put," he said. "Many people see what's wrong. You've taken it one step further and said what it is that we can do about it. I'm sure you'll make a fine officer, and I'd be proud to support your application to the Academy."

Mustang laughed a little in sheer relief, and Hughes beamed radiantly. "Thank you, Brigadier General!" he said enthusiastically. "I've got the papers right here."

"Just one thing, Roy," said Grumman. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen," said the lad without the slightest hesitation.

Grumman frowned at him. "I'm not so senile as all that," he said. "_How old are you, Roy_?"

The boy flushed a brilliant crimson. "Fifteen," he muttered.

The officer nodded. "I thought so. How were you going to dodge that little bullet?"

Roy wordlessly held out a standard disclaimer and permission form bearing a neatly scribbled signature which read _Mordred Hawkeye_. Grumman shook his head.

"That's not my son-in-law's signature," he said. "You forged that."

Both youths were suddenly bright crimson. Grumman shook his head.

"Roy Mustang, I know a thing or two about officer material," he said; "and I know you could go far. Do you really want to jeopardize all of it now, before you even start? Do you really want to do something stupid that could come back to haunt you in decades to come? Something that could pull your career out from under you and send you careening down into ignominy and disgrace?"

"Sir?" Roy's expression was one of bewilderment. Clearly he didn't understand the implications of such dishonesty.

"If you forge your sensei's signature, you'll be founding your career on a lie," Grumman said. "At any moment an enemy might dig up that little piece of dirt and use it to destroy you. And if you want to be a revolutionary, and set out to change the way the whole country is run, you're going to have plenty of enemies. Take my advice: don't give them any ammunition. Understood?"

"Yes... but sir, how will I get sensei's signature?"

"His signature wouldn't be legally binding anyway," Grumman said. "And it would raise suspicions about your past if your teacher had to sign for you. My advice? Wait."

"_Wait_?" Hughes echoed incredulously.

"You'll be sixteen... when?"

"Not quite four months," Roy answered softly.

"Well, then, you should _certainly_ wait," Grumman said firmly. "In four months' time you'll be old enough to join up on your own recognizance. Then I'll write a letter of support, and you can start at the Academy next fall. It's a bit of a wait, but at least you'll be unimpeachable if you ever do achieve a position of power. Youthful wisdom is a great asset, and youthful folly has been the downfall of better men than you."

Cadet Hughes frowned. "Yeah, but he needs—"

Unexpectedly, Mustang elbowed his friend in the ribs, cutting short the protestation. "I suppose you're right, sir," he said. There was a resigned quality to his voice: something akin to disappointment. "Can I come and see you again, then? Once I'm sixteen?"

"I hope you'll come more often than that!" Grumman said sunnily. "Now that you're living in town, I want you to pop over and dine with me now and then. We have a lot of catching up to do!"

Roy smiled timidly. "I'd like that, sir," he said.

"Excellent!" Grumman said, clapping his hands. "Delighted to hear it! Now tell me, how did you come to study alchemy?"

_discidium_

Riza's grandfather was right. Roy knew that he was right: there was no point in trying to enter the military and reach a rank high enough for him to make a difference if that might be snatched away at any moment by the discovery that he had lied on his application to the Academy. It was far more wise to wait, and apply next year, and be sure that his position could never be challenged. He wanted to change things. He _had_ to change things. He couldn't afford to build his career on a shaky foundation.

There was just one problem. Enrolling in the Academy would have been hard proof of his intentions. It would have given him tangible evidence that he had made a firm decision about what he wanted to do with his life and the kind of person he wanted to become. Showing up on his sensei's doorstep in the crisp blue wool of a military uniform would have proved, once and for all, that he was taking action. Intentions were meaningless. Action was everything.

Without such evidence, Roy did not know if he dared to return to Hamner. Sensei would be angry, might even banish him again – permanently this time. From what Brigadier General Grumman had said, he stood no chance of passing the State Alchemist exam without Hawkeye-sensei's secrets. He _had_ to obey his sensei.

_If you aren't ready, don't bother coming back until you are. Do you understand me?_

The implication was clear. Until he had proof, he couldn't return. If he waited until next fall to enrol, he wouldn't be able to return to Hamner this November. He'd have to wait. Ten, maybe eleven extra months of struggling and scrounging. Almost a whole two years away from Riza.

Roy didn't know if he could bear it.

He would _have_ to, he decided. The more he thought about it, the more determined he grew to become a State Alchemist. They were powerful men. They could safeguard the nation, and from what he had seen of General Haman's large office, they had influence in the government as well. As a State Alchemist, he could achieve both of his goals. He could defend Amestris from her enemies, and he could be a voice of reform of inadequate social policies. To make a difference, he first needed to acquire power, and a State Alchemist's licence seemed the surest way to do that.

He had his sights fixed on a concrete goal, and he knew that he couldn't let anything distract him from it. If he had to keep slaving away in that lousy warehouse, so be it. If he had to scrimp on food and fuel, and go around in tatty clothes and broken shoes, and endure the scornful glances of well-to-do bystanders, so be it. If he had to bide his time until he turned sixteen (how he hated his young, inadequate body!), so be it. If he had to wait another never-ending year before he could see Riza again, so be it.

Some small part of his mind knew that that last condition was already destroying him, but he ignored it. He _had_ to achieve his goal. He _had_ to become a State Alchemist.

She probably didn't even care about him anymore, anyway. Otherwise why hadn't she answered even one of his letters?


	73. Two Wounded Birds

**Chapter 73: Two Wounded Birds**

Spring came and went, and Riza's back healed. Still, though she could no longer actually feel the contours of the tattoo she seemed haunted by it. Like an oppressive weight on her soul, the knowledge of what she carried under her shirtwaist disturbed her thoughts and visited her in her dreams.

It did not help, either, that her father was obviously preoccupied with it. Often he would burst in upon Riza while she was bathing, forcing her to curl in upon herself in a useless attempt to hide her little breasts and the thatch of hair between her legs. He would check the tattoo, running his hands invasively over the bare skin of her back. Then, invariably he would mutter, "Marvellous, glorious;" and then depart, more often than not forgetting to close the door again behind him.

The humiliation of this treatment was almost more than Riza could bear, and so her nightly bath soon became a weekly affair. To keep herself from feeling absolutely filthy, she would clean her private parts and her armpits with a facecloth every night, and she washed her short hair in the kitchen sink every other afternoon.

Aside from the occasions when he would check up on her back, her father left her largely alone. As long as his meals were taken to the study thrice a day, and she kept quiet, and came quickly on the rare occasions when he called her to him to send her on some errand, he had no use for her. And the worst part was that Riza was glad.

She couldn't bear to look at him. He had hurt her, and he didn't care about her at all, and even when she had thought she could finally make him love her again, she had failed to do it. His gaunt, pallid face and his lifeless eyes were a constant reminder of her failure. She did her utmost to be a dutiful daughter, but she knew now that she would never again be his beloved _chibi-chan_. She still loved him and admired him, but she no longer strove desperately to please him, for she knew that it could not be done.

Still, when he shouted for her one morning in May, she hurried quietly down the stairs, stopping at the door of his study. "Yes, Father?" she said respectfully.

He was coughing again, bent over his hands as the wet crackling of phlegm bubbled up into his throat. It took him a moment to recover himself, and when at last he did his face was flushed and his voice hoarse. "I need my medicine," he croaked, gesturing at the paregoric bottle, which was lying on its side on his blotter, obviously empty. "Go into town and fetch it."

He took out his billfold and held out two five hundred _sens_ notes. Riza swallowed. She knew that that was practically all the money they had left, and it was meant to last them until the first of July. Father's investments had gone bad, he said, and they were only making about five thousand _sens_ per quarter. The taxes were higher now, because of the war with Aerugo and the ongoing trouble in the west, and there was little left for food. Still, Riza knew that her father needed his medicine. It was the only thing that soothed his terrible cough.

"Yes, sir," she said, taking the money. Perhaps she could buy a small bottle. She had plenty of potatoes and a sack of oats in the larder, but there was little meat left, and no fresh vegetables. She didn't know how to plant the garden, for that had always been Mr. Mustang's duty. She worried about how they would keep food on the table.

As she walked into town she wondered bitterly where Mr. Mustang had gone to and why he never even wrote a letter to see how his sensei was. Riza knew he didn't want _her_, but surely Father must still mean something to him. He _had _to come back. If he came back, then her father would teach him flame alchemy, and Riza would never, ever have to worry about finding a worthy successor for the research that she carried.

She turned and entered the apothecary shop. It was a small, dark building that smelled of talc and chemicals. There were a few sparsely stocked tables from which customers could choose products like liver pills and hair tonics, but most of the room was separated from the public by a high wooden counter. Behind it, tall shelves full of medicines, empty capsules, mortars, glass tablets and decanters of strangely coloured liquids waited for the apothecary's hand to combine them into healing compounds.

The apothecary himself was a small man with foggy spectacles. He wore a white coat stained with coal tar and gentian violet, and he always had a stick of peppermint hooked behind his ear. He saw Riza as she entered, and came down from his platform behind the counter to great her at the little swinging door that separated his world from the rest of the village.

"Miss Hawkeye," he said. "Are you here for your father's medicine?"

"Yes, sir," Riza said softly. "His cough is worse than ever."

"Hmm, yes. Do you have the prescription?"

Riza shook her head helplessly. The last time she had picked up the paregoric, she remembered the druggist telling her that she would need a note from the doctor for next time. She had gone to the doctor (a bony and imposing young man with long yellow whiskers) to get a note, but he had told her that if her father wanted medicine he would have to come in for an examination. When she had told that to Father, he had brushed her off impatiently, saying that he had no time for doctors and their meddling.

"Hmm, hmm. Miss Hawkeye, don't you remember me telling you that the new doctor is adamant that I don't give out medicines without a prescription?" said the apothecary. "I'm sorry, but I can't give you any more paregoric."

"But sir..." Riza protested softly. "Please, sir. Father's ill: he needs it."

"If he's ill then he needs to see the doctor," the apothecary told her, gently but firmly. "I know that Doctor Bella didn't mind, and the locum didn't care, but this new chap likes things the way that he likes 'em. He doesn't want me handing out opiates without his say-so, and that's that. It'd be more than my licence is worth to give you that medicine without a prescription."

"Oh, _please_, sir!" Riza tried again. Father would be so angry if she came back without it. "Please, he won't go to see the new doctor: he doesn't trust him."

"I'm sorry, lassie, but there's nothing I can do. Now, run along home and tell him he has to see the doctor," the man said, almost regretfully.

Seeing no option, Riza left.

_discidium_

As Riza had predicted, her father was furious.

"What do you _mean_ he won't give it to you? You stupid little cow, I need that medicine!" he howled.

"I know, Father," Riza said timidly, balling her hands into fists at her sides and trying not to burst into tears. "But he said you have to see the doctor."

"Doctor, bah!" Father sneered. "He's a pimple-faced _child_! I won't have children telling me what I can and can't do, not even my own! You go back there and you tell that damned pill-pusher that I need my medicine! Don't you dare come back to this house without it! If you do, you spoiled little wench, I'll wear you out with the buckle end of my belt! Don't think that just 'cause you're a girl I won't do it, either! Your back may be sacred, but your rear end is not!"

Such a thought never crossed Riza's mind: she had no doubt that her father meant just what he said. She fled the house, biting her lip to keep back frightened sobs.

When at last she composed herself enough to return to the apothecary shop, the druggist raised his head from the pills he had been rolling. His first reaction was one of annoyance, for he knew from the way she was walking that she had no prescription. Then he saw the peaked quality of the round little cheeks, and the way that her hand trembled as she drew near the counter.

"P-please, sir, he won't see the doctor," she stammered, and the man could tell that she was striving with all her might to look calm and collected. "Can't he please have even a little bit?"

The man had children of his own, and he knew a frightened girl when he saw one. This young thing was terrified to go home without the drug. Suddenly his frustration melted away. Poor little child, she had an angry opium-eater at home, and whether the alchemist used it for his cough, as she claimed, or for the narcotic high that the drug could yield, he was furious that she hadn't procured it for him. Not for the first time in his career, the druggist wished that there was something he could do for the children trapped in these situations. The drunks, the drug-addled fools, the ones who shot morphine into their own arms... these people didn't deserve to have custody of innocent little children. No child should have to deal with those kinds of problems.

"You need to have him see the doctor, poppet," the druggist said as kindly as he could. "I'm so sorry..."

Her lower lip quivered, but she bit it resolutely, casting her eyes down towards her feet. "Yes, sir," she said, her voice soft and resigned.

It was her sober acceptance that cracked the last of the man's restraint. He ducked back behind the counter and filled a twenty-ounce bottle from the vat of paregoric. With an expert hand, he drafted a label backdated three years and bearing the name of _Dr. I. Greyson_. A smudge of petrolatum blurred the letters, making them look aged and faded. He slapped it on the bottle and surveyed the finished result. He'd make a first-rate counterfeiter, he thought wryly.

He came out and thrust the bottle into the child's hand. "Here you are, take it," he said. "It'll mean my licence if the doc finds out, so don't you tell anyone, all right, lassie?"

She looked up and smiled cautiously. "Really, sir?" she asked.

"Yes, run along and give that to your father. He's lucky to have such a pretty little thing for a daughter." The druggist reached out and petted the small blonde head.

"Thank you, sir!" Riza breathed rapturously. Then – and only then – did one crystal tear roll down her cheek. "Oh, sir, how much is it, please?"

"Go on, be off with you," the man said, waving her off. "If I sell it to you, I'm that much further up the river. Just take it and go."

As she hastened away, he turned gruffly back towards his counter, wondering how best to juggle the inventory so that no one would notice the missing narcotic.

_discidium_

It was three days after the encounter with the kind-hearted druggist, and Riza was changing the sheets on her father's bed. She had just finished plumping the pillows when a familiar rumbling sound came from the open window. Anxious lest she should prove too slow, Riza abandoned the task at hand and hurried down the stairs. She didn't even stop to check whether her father's study door was open before sprinting past it. She flew out the front door, down the steps and to the edge of the yard. She wanted to cry out joyously, as Mr. Mustang had always been wont to do, but there was a limit to her happy forgetfulness. She stood silently instead, watching as the caravans drew nearer.

The first thing she noticed was that docile old Dot was missing. Then she realized that while old Mr. Hughes drove the caravan, and Gareth the wagon, while Tiath rode his aging pony, there was no sign at all of the eldest of the Brothers Hughes.

Absalom reigned his vehicle to a stop, and Gareth did the same. Then he tossed the reins over the wagon-box and hopped down.

"Why, Riza Hawkeye!" he said happily, coming forward and tipping his hat. "How do you do? How much you've grown!"

"Where's Ben?" Riza blurted out rudely. She clapped her hand over her mouth. "I mean to say, how do you do, Gareth?"

"I'm just fine, and Ben's fine, too," Gareth said, though his voice wavered a little on the second clause. "He's just lying down in the caravan: his stomach's been troubling him lately.

Riza wondered if this meant that he had been drinking again. "May I see him?" she asked.

Gareth sighed wearily. "I'm afraid we'd better let him sleep, love. He was up most of last night. But I'll tell you what. You come by the camp tomorrow, and I'm sure he'll be delighted to see you. All right?"

Riza nodded. "Thank you, Gare. Take care of him?"

The glover smiled sadly. "I always do, baby," he said. Then he patted her cheek fondly. "We'll see you tomorrow after school?"

Riza shook her head. "I don't go to school now," she said. "Can I come when my chores are done?"

"The identical minute your chores are done!" Gareth said, almost mustering a genuine smile. He looked weary and careworn, and suddenly Riza felt unspeakably sad. Why was everyone unhappy? She wanted so much to see somebody cheerful again.

_discidium_

When Riza arrived at the tinkers' camp, just after two o'clock the following day, Gareth was in the process of settling Ben in the sunshine. He had laid out a low wooden chair made of two pieces fitted into one another to form sharp "V" shape, and was helping the other man hobble across the grass to it. Ben seemed unable to support his own weight, and he was swathed in a limp-looking quilt. As Riza watched he stumbled and Gareth tightened his hold on his older brother's shoulders. The glover mumbled something, and Ben nodded doggedly. Then Gareth eased him down onto the chair, settling the blanket around him. Ben's lips moved, but Riza could hear no sound. Gareth apparently could, for he nodded and disappeared into the caravan.

Riza tiptoed forward timidly, tilting her head as she moved into Benjamin's line of sight.

"Ben?" she said softly.

He turned bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes to look at her. His face was a horrible grey colour, and his cheeks were sunken in like those of a cadaver. The dull, dogged look on his face brightened as he saw who had come to visit him.

"Riza!" he said hoarsely. "My little Riza!"

He worked his arms free of the blanket, and held them out to her. With a tiny sound of mingled joy and misery, Riza ran forward, kneeling next to him and embracing him tightly. He wrapped his thin arms around her and hugged her close, burying his face in her short-cropped hair and breathing shallowly against her neck.

"Riza, my Riza," he said wonderingly. "I thought you might have forgotten me."

"Never!" Riza said. "Never, never! I'm so glad to see you!"

He smelled of sweat and stale ginger root, but she didn't care. It was Ben! He was back! Even sickly and pale, he was still Ben, and she loved him. She had missed him so much.

Ben pushed her gently back onto her heels. "Let me look at you," he said breathlessly, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. "You're as beautiful as ever. And you're growing! You'll be a young lady soon."

Riza flushed a little, curling one self-conscious arm over her small breasts. Ben didn't seem to notice. He was drinking in her features rapturously.

"It's so good to see you," he said, and she saw that his green eyes were glistening with tears behind his grubby specs. "I was worried I wouldn't see you ever again. How has my girl been?"

"I'm okay," Riza lied. She couldn't tell Ben what had happened over the long, terrible year since he had last gone away. "How are you?"

"I've seen better days," he told her honestly, wiping his brow with a trembling hand. Then he cast around until his eyes fell on Gareth, who had stopped ten paces from the reunited friends. Ben's lips quivered as he spoke. "Gare?"

"Here you are," said the glover. He held out a one-dram tin measuring cup that Riza realized abruptly was filled almost to the top with some kind of alcohol. Ben took it and tossed back the dose almost desperately. Gareth took the empty cup and ruffled his brother's unkempt hair sadly. "Atta boy," he said softly. "You and Riza have a nice visit, okay? I'll be right over there if you need me."

Ben nodded, and Gareth moved off to the shade of the caravan, where his sewing materials were set up. He sat, cross-legged, and picked up his work. Riza turned back to Ben.

"What was that?" she asked. With any other adult she would have been more circumspect, but this was Ben, after all.

"My medicine," Ben said. "It... it helps."

"Oh." Riza wasn't sure what to say. She smoothed her narrow skirt.

"Gareth says you're not in school. Why not?"

"Well, I was almost finished," Riza said. "Father felt I could study better at home, I suppose, and—"

"You mean he didn't _want_ you to go to school anymore," Ben said, sudden clarity in his clouded eyes and maybe just a little anger.

"I suppose," Riza confessed.

Ben sighed. "I hear the doctor's dead," he said. "She was a good lady."

Riza nodded briefly. She couldn't bear to think about Doctor Bella.

Ben sighed. "My poor little Riza," he mumbled. "Life's so unfair to you. So unfair."

He didn't know the half of it, Riza thought wretchedly. Suddenly her back seemed to itch as it had when the marred skin had finally started to heal. She could feel the deep, penetrating ache of the thousands of hair-fine needle pricks. She remembered Father's strong, rough hands stripping away her clothing so that he could work more easily. Sleepless nights, anguished days, two long weeks without anything to cover her torso, agony, humiliation, deep, gnawing self-loathing... it all came flooding back.

She felt her composure cracking. She couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear what he had done to her. He'd taken a picture off of a piece of paper and put it on her back, with no more concern than he would have afforded a fresh sheet of parchment. He had forced the burden of protecting her work onto her slender little shoulders – figuratively and literally – and she was too young and too insecure to cope with that. She couldn't tell anyone, not even Ben, because her father had trusted her and despite everything she could not betray that trust.

She couldn't talk to Ben, so she did the only thing that she could do. She wept.

It started as twin runnels of tears cutting down her soft cheeks. Then a sob welled up, almost bursting through her defences. She swallowed it.

Then he touched her, putting a consoling hand on her quivering shoulder, and the dam broke.

Riza flung herself forward into Ben's gentle arms, burying her face against his dirty shirt. She clung to the blanket with hands weakened by anguish, and let him curl his arms around her. She sobbed violently, cathartically, and Ben just held her. He didn't speak, either to console or to chide. He didn't lie to her and tell her that everything would be okay, nor did he scold her and order her to be a big girl. He merely clutched her close, one spindly hand working gently up and down her spine. Whether he thought her tears were for long-lost Doctor Bella, or whether he suspected that some deeper pain was responsible for this loss of control, Benjamin Hughes gave her what she needed most: a brief moment of comfort and security in a world that had crumbled into lonely uncertainty; and he did so in absolute silence.

All the rest of her life, Riza was grateful to him for that.


	74. Blood

**Chapter 74: Blood**

Afterwards, neither Ben nor Riza spoke about the child's moment of weakness. Over the next two weeks, Riza would bring her books to the encampment and sit with Ben while she studied. It was a welcome change from labouring in the dark, empty house, and Ben seemed to enjoy her company as much as he was able. It was plain even to Riza's young eyes that her friend was gravely ill. She didn't dare to ask what was wrong, but he looked so frail and sickly, and the doses of whiskey that Gareth doled out no more than once an hour scarcely seemed to help at all. Still, he was gentle as always and kind in his own grim, quiet way.

They couldn't go hunting together, of course, for Ben was not strong enough. Indeed, he needed Gareth's aid just to move around the campsite. So Riza spent a lot of time reading to him, and talking about her lessons. If her father noticed she was often gone from the house, he did not care. Riza rather thought that he didn't notice.

One afternoon, Riza was reading from a book of ancient history. Ben sat on his chair with his quilt around him, listening complacently. Then suddenly the fine baseline tremor that ran perpetually through his body began to coarsen. Riza looked up in alarm as Ben started to shake violently. His hands clutched spastically at his shirt, and then his eyes vanished, rolling back under half-mast lids.

"Gareth!" Riza cried, throwing the book aside and springing to her feet. "Gareth!"

The glover had been making pan biscuits over the campfire. He set down the iron skillet on a broad stone and came running, taking hold of the front of Ben's shirt.

"Easy does it, man. Easy does it," he said in a soft, capable way that told Riza he had done this many times before. Ben made no reply: his teeth were grinding together and the convulsions continued. He pitched to the left, and the convulsions continued. He pitched to the left, and Gareth eased his seizing brother into the grass.

"Riza," he said, nodding at the chair. The girl understood what he wanted, and moved it away from Ben's rigidly twitching legs.

Gareth shot her a tiny smile of thanks as he stroked Ben's hair with a firm hand. "Come on, buddy. Come out of it," he coaxed.

As if responding to his brother's entreaty, Ben abruptly fell limp. For a moment he was so still that Riza was frightened that he had swooned away – or worse. Then he moaned softly.

Gareth exhaled in sharp relief. "Ben," he said softly. He reached into his pocket and drew out a flask, unscrewing the lid before lifting his brother's head with his empty hand. "Hey, Ben..."

His eyelids fluttered, and clouded eyes sought out Gareth's face. "I..." Ben croaked impotently.

"Drink up," Gareth said. "I told you not to stop."

"I don't want it," mumbled Ben.

"Yeah, well your body doesn't agree." It came out as a sickly laugh. Gareth's lips twitched with the effort of his suppressed emotion. "Come on. Just a mouthful."

"No..." Ben protested. "I don't want it."

"I know you don't," said Gareth tightly; "but the time to make that choice was five years ago. I don't know what else to do for you, but you can't keep having seizures."

"I don't want..." Ben closed his eyes. "It's killing me. I'm dying."

"You're not dying!" Gareth snapped. "Don't talk like that! Now stop being so stubborn. Please, Ben." His voice cracked and he sounded on the brink of tears. "Please, I don't know what else to do for you."

Ben closed his eyes resignedly and parted his lips. Gareth tilted the flask, pouring a little whiskey down his brother's throat. Ben swallowed and shuddered. Gareth re-capped the vial and looked up at the silent observer.

"Riza, be a good lass and fetch a pan of water from the stream," he said. "Nice and cold. I need to get Ben cleaned up."

Riza didn't understand, but she was conditioned to obey such commands – though Father never phrased them so kindly as Gareth did. She took a pan and hurried off.

By the time she returned, Ben was lying on a blanket in the shade of the caravan, his haggard face relaxed into the smoothness of slumber. Gareth was soaking soiled clothing in the washbasin. He thanked Riza softly for the water, and then set it aside before returning to his cooking. Riza hung back for a moment before coming forward.

"Gareth?" she said quietly. "W-what happened?"

The glover looked up sadly. "Ben had a fit," he said. "A seizure. He thought... the last few days he's been thinking things over, and he decided he wanted to come off the drink entirely. Trouble is, whenever he tries that he gets the DTs. Don't worry about it, sweetie. He'll be okay."

"Is he really dying?" Riza ventured.

"Of course not," Gare told her gently. "He's just got a black streak that makes him talk like that."

"Is it because of your mother?"

Gareth sighed sadly. "Part of it, yeah," he said. "Ben thinks too much, that's his trouble. He acts too quickly, and then he thinks about it, and sometimes he can't stand it. Aw, but let's talk about something else, huh? Where's Roy got to? Is he too good for us now that he's going to be a famous alchemist?"

His tone was suddenly jovial and joking, but the words themselves cut Riza to the bone. He wasn't too good for the tinkers, maybe – she didn't know about that – but he was certainly too good for _her_.

"Mr. Mustang is gone," she said. "He doesn't live here anymore."

Gareth gawked. "What? Where did he go?"

"I don't know," Riza said; echoing the sentiment that Father had voiced back when she had been foolish enough to keep asking that stupid question. "He just left."

"Damn," Gareth said softly. "Without telling anybody where he went to? Maes must be crushed if he hasn't been writing: Baby always set quite a store by Roy's letters, you know."

Riza used to set quite a store by Mr. Mustang, too. She resolutely changed the subject. "I should go home," she said. "I'll come back tomorrow... tell Ben I'll bring him something nice to eat."

Gareth smiled mournfully and reached out to pat her cheek. "You're a good little lady," he said. "You know you're really very good for Ben, don't you? You're saving him."

Riza didn't know how she should respond to this, so she did the easiest thing: she smiled a little and left the clearing. As she walked home, however, the image of her friend arcing and writhing in the throes of the fit clung to her. It chilled her heart and bruised her soul and made her belly ache. It made her belly ache _a lot_. Indeed, it was still aching dully when she went to bed that night.

_discidium_

The pain persisted the following morning. It was a nagging discomfort, nothing like the anguish of the tattoo, but a dull, searing ache below her navel. It was a hot, irksome discomfort that didn't seem to be relieved by the usual bodily functions. Riza reasoned that it must have been something that she had eaten the day before – though she could not think what. As the morning went on, however, the pain did not dissipate, and if anything seemed to grow worse. She ignored it, for she was no stranger to pain, and went on with her chores.

That afternoon when she went upstairs to relieve herself, she found two little spots of blood on her combinations. Puzzled, she ran her hand along the inside of her thighs, but she could find no scrape or abrasion. So she pushed it out of her mind.

She baked sugar biscuits, which came out rather hard. Regardless, she took a plateful down to the Hughes encampment. Tiath was there, and said that Gareth and Absalom had taken Ben to bathe in the creek. Riza wanted to wait until the other men returned, but she knew that if she dawdled she would not be able to get supper into the study on time – and then Father would be angry. She left the biscuits with Tia and returned to the house.

That night, she slept curled to one side, her knees hugged to her belly in an attempt to ease the aching. She felt puffy and waterlogged, too, as if her abdomen were engorged with fluid. Hot and uncomfortable, she finally fell asleep.

Riza awoke the next morning to discover that something was terribly, horribly wrong.

She was bleeding. The crotch of her combinations was soaked in bright red blood. Frantically, Riza ran to the bathroom, stripping off her clothes and trying desperately to find the wound. She couldn't see anything at all! Nor was there any pain, apart from the persistent dull ache in her pelvis. Then Riza's hand came away covered in gore, and she realized with a thrill of horror that the blood was coming from _inside_ of her. That, she understood now, must be the source of her discomfort. She was bleeding from the inside!

A tiny, panicked sob tore itself from her lips. She was bleeding! She was bleeding! She didn't know what to do. She couldn't bandage a cut on the inside of her the way she could a sliced fingertip or a scraped knee. What was she going to do?

Trembling violently with fear, Riza dressed herself, putting a facecloth between her legs so that the blood would not stain her fresh combinations. Her father's bed was empty, so she descended the stairs, forgetting to overstep the bad one. Either the sound like a gunshot had given him warning of her approach, or Father had not been working, for he was staring off into space when she reached the study door.

"F-Father?" she stammered.

"What is it?" he asked vacantly.

"I need to see the doctor," Riza whispered.

He turned his eyes upon her, piercingly. "You don't look sick," he said. As if to give her example of what illness looked like, he coughed phlegmatically into his fist.

"I..." Riza flushed a little with shame. The blood was leaking from such an intimate part of her. She was too embarrassed to speak about it in front of him. Indeed, she wasn't at all sure that she would be able to confess to the doctor what was amiss, but she had no other choice. "Please, I need to see the doctor."

"I haven't got money to waste on that young imposter," Father said sourly. "Especially not to treat healthy young girls."

"But Father..." She _wasn't_ healthy! She was bleeding! Maybe even dying!

"Get out and leave me alone. And don't forget my breakfast. You're not sick enough to shirk your chores."

"Yes, sir," Riza exhaled, retreating nervously.

True, she thought as she hurried to the kitchen. She didn't _feel_ ill, and she wasn't in _much_ pain, but... She shuddered as she thought of the blood. Maybe it had stopped, she told herself firmly. Maybe it had stopped now.

But after she took the eggs and toast into the study and retreated upstairs, she realized that it _hadn't _stopped. There was blood all over the facecloth, soaking into the terry fabric and staining it a horrible scarlet. Riza pressed a hand to her mouth. She was bleeding! It wouldn't stop! She was going to bleed to death, just like Benjamin's mother.

She had wished, when the tattoo had burned into her flesh and gnawed brutally at her sanity and self-worth, that she might die. Now Riza realized that she didn't want that. She was afraid to die. She was afraid that it would hurt, afraid of what would happen. She was afraid to be buried in a cold grave up on the hill. She was afraid of the darkness, of the oblivion that waited for the dead. She didn't want to die! She wasn't even twelve yet: she wasn't ready to die!

Panic broke over her in cold, horrible waves. She was dying! She was going to bleed and bleed, and it would never stop until she had no blood left. Then she would die. She would _die_!

Then, slowly, she began to calm herself. If she was going to die, then there was nothing she could do to stop it. She had to prepare. She had to be ready. She wished – how she wished! – that she might have one last chance to speak to Mr. Mustang before she died. She missed him, even if he didn't want her anymore, and she would have liked to see him one more time.

Well, she couldn't, she told herself sternly. There was no sense in being a silly little goose about it. If she was going to bleed to death, she didn't have time to waste pining for her father's student. She couldn't say goodbye to him, but she could say goodbye to Ben.

The thought was almost enough to bring fresh tears. She loved Ben, and he loved her. She was good for him; Gareth had said so. What would happen to Ben once she was dead? Who would read to him and hug him and sit in the sunshine with him? Riza steeled herself. She had to say goodbye to Ben. She owed him that much.

_discidium_

Gareth Hughes was finishing the cuff of a lady's kid glove. With Tia and their father in town peddling their wares, and Ben fast asleep in the caravan, Gareth was left to his own thoughts. Not really wanting to dwell overlong on the troubles plaguing the once-merry Hughes clan, Gareth focused on his sewing instead.

So intent was he upon his work that he didn't notice the approach of the large-eyed Hawkeye child until she was practically in his lap. When at last he saw her, Gareth smiled warmly.

"Why, Riza!" he said. "You're here early. Did you get all your chores done extra quick today?"

She shook her head. There was something terribly wrong, Gareth realized abruptly. Something was upsetting her, though she was trying very hard not to show it.

"C-can I see Ben?" she said, her voice wavering a little.

"He's sleeping," Gareth told her. "I'd really rather not wake him. Is it terribly important?"

"Yes," Riza said, desperation cracking through her mask of composure. She caulked the leak as quickly as she could. "I mean no. I just... I wanted to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Gareth said. "We'll be around for another week at least!" Then grim realization stole his smile. "Or has your father said you're not to consort with us anymore?"

"No," Riza said. "No, it's not that. It's... I'm the one who's going away."

"Where are you going?" asked Gareth. He hoped it was somewhere nice. The poor little thing needed a break from the obviously oppressive atmosphere in her fine old house.

Riza shook her head. She tried to keep her voice level, but the panic behind her stiff facade burst through. "I-I'm dy-ying!"

"Dying?" Gareth exclaimed. "Don't be silly. You look perfectly—"

"I'm _bleeding_!" Riza choked out. A frightened tear rolled down her face.

Gareth looked at her more carefully. "Bleeding? Where? I can't see any blood at all."

The girl's pale face flushed a brilliant crimson. "I c-can't... it's not... I..."

She couldn't say it, but the telltale way in which her hands moved instinctively to cover her front told Gareth what he needed to know. She was what? Eleven? Twelve? Old enough, he realized, old life lessons coming back to haunt him.

"You're bleeding from your private place," he said, as gently as he could. Riza stiffened, apparently alarmed by his astute guess. The glover sighed a little, drawing a hand over his mouth. "Hasn't anybody ever told you what that means?"

"I'm dying," Riza stammered. "L-like your momma did. I'm going to bleed to death..."

"No," Gareth soothed. "No, you're not. I promise. Riza... honey... it's normal."

She didn't believe him. Indeed, from the stunned look on her face, he wasn't quite sure that she had even processed his words. Gareth bit his lip. He'd explained this three times before: to Tiath, to Ira and to Maes... but that had been different. They were _boys_, and any questions about female anatomy had a purely theoretical caste to them. For Riza, this talk was an entirely more intimate matter. Compounding the problem was that Gareth was not only a man, but little more than a passing acquaintance. He wasn't the person to tell her these things, but if he didn't, who would? Her mother had been dead these six (or seven?) years. Her father obviously wasn't inclined to offer any such information. The lady doctor in whom Eli had placed so much store was dead. Gareth couldn't count on anybody else telling the child these things – and if there was one thing that Gare had always been good at, it was taking on duties that no one else wanted.

"Riza, sit down," he said to her. Then he rethought it. "Did you use anything to catch the blood?"

"A facecloth," she confessed in a tiny, broken voice. She seemed to shrink in upon herself. "I put it in my combinations."

"All right, then. Sit by me." Gareth set aside his sewing and turned a little to look gravely at her. "Riza, as a girl grows into a woman, her body changes. She starts to grow hips and breasts, just like you are. She gets hair on her body, and she grows softer and rounder."

She nodded comprehendingly. She understood this: these changes were all part of the pubescent metamorphosis that she knew she was undergoing. Gareth felt encouraged by that.

"Those are all signs that a girl's body is getting ready to have babies," he said. "Do you know where babies come from?"

"They grow in the mother," Riza said. "In her stomach."

"Not her stomach, exactly," Gareth told her. "The babies grow in a place called a womb. It's warm and dark, and the inside of it is covered in a thick, soft lining full of blood vessels. Even when a woman isn't going to have a baby yet, her body keeps the womb ready. Every month the lining grows, waiting for a baby to settle into it. If a lady _doesn't_ have a baby, the body lets the lining fall off so that it can make a new one. Do you understand?"

Riza's brow was furrowed. "A lining? Like a mother bird puts hair and feathers inside her nest?" she asked.

"Yes, that's right," Gareth said, relieved. His face felt hot and his shirt unduly restrictive. This was the most humiliating situation he had been in for a _long_ time. He loosed his collar. "Except that human babies like to grow where there's lots of blood to carry food to them. When there's no baby and the lining falls off, the lady bleeds a little, and the blood comes out of her private place. It doesn't hurt, and it's not dangerous. It's just messy."

"The blood comes out..." Riza looked down into her lap. "Y-you mean this happens to other girls?"

"Every single other girl on the planet," Gareth promised. It occured to him, rather hysterically, that now he really _was _everybody's mother. "It happens every month. It only stops if a baby moves in, because then the baby _needs_ the lining. Do you see?"

"It's normal?" Riza said in a tiny voice. "I-I'm not dying?"

"You're not dying," Gareth vowed. "It's just your body's way of getting ready for babies. Some day when you're grown up, you'll have a husband and maybe you'll get a baby. Then the baby will move into the womb that you've kept safe and warm all along. Until then, you'll bleed a little bit every month. Just for a few days, I promise."

"Oh..." Riza looked a little shell-shocked. Gareth half expected her to laugh or cry, or perhaps to hug him as she was wont to hug Ben. Instead, she seemed to collect herself like a courageous little soldier. "Thank you for explaining that, Gareth," she said primly. "I wasn't aware."

"My pleasure," he said, trying not to feel disappointed at her cool acceptance of his revelation. It might have been nice to have her treat him as an older brother, the way she did Ben. "I'll tell you what, I'll find you some rags that you can use to catch the blood. If you make sure to wash them well, you can use them every time. Mam used to have a bunch that she used for her courses."

"Is that what it's called? Courses?" Riza asked, sounding almost curious as she relaxed out of her panic.

Gareth shrugged. "The doctors have a long, fancy word for it, but that's what Mam always said. It's a shame she's not here, 'cause she'd explain it better than I could."

It was the first time since his mother's death that Gareth had ever said anything like that. He had long ago decided that the Brothers Hughes couldn't afford to pine for their mother, and he had always led by example. Now, however, the situation was different. Now, he would've done _anything_ to have some woman, any woman, on hand who might have explained it, he thought ruefully. Still, it was over and done with, and there was no denying that the poor little thing needed to know. She must have been simply terrified. Gareth tried to imagine what that would've felt like, waking up to find yourself bleeding from an orifice that had been dormant your whole life, with no explanation or warning. He gritted his teeth. Must've been awful...

He wondered briefly if he ought to give her the whole talk about men and women and sexual intercourse, but he decided that he just didn't have the courage. She'd learn about all of that when she was older. Hopefully.


	75. Slow Ascent

**Chapter 75: Slow Ascent **

Two weeks before his sixteenth birthday, Roy Mustang made a startling discovery. The alchemist employed to service the presses at the publishing house was an idiot.

He was sweeping the floor of the main print room that evening. This was one of Roy's least favourite duties, for the massive printing press rumbled and roared like a flatulent dragon, and the air was perpetually choked with paper dust and the sharp alkaline pong of the ink. The floor had to be swept twice a day – morning and night – for otherwise the dust raised by the cyclones of air from the massive rollers would clog the gears and clockworks and cling to the freshly printed pages.

Tonight Roy was especially tired. Though it was only Wednesday, he had been to see Brigadier General Grumman the night before. These visits, which occurred a little less than once a fortnight, were a welcome occurrence. For one, they always started off with supper – a varied, plentiful supper, for the general was a better cook than he claimed to be. Roy was hoarding his wages against the day when he would be ready to take the State Alchemist exam, and the only expense on which he could scrimp was food. Since he was also working harder than he had in his life on top of having the normal appetite of a growing teenage boy, he was perpetually hungry. Grumman seemed to take his copious eating in stride: a natural characteristic of his age – and for that Roy was grateful. The gentleman didn't seem aware of Roy's financial situation, and that was just how the youth wanted to keep it. As long as he remained in the dark, Roy could be sure that these visits were not an act of charity, and that Grumman, like Maes, enjoyed Roy's company.

Roy certainly liked spending time with the aging soldier. He was witty and cheerful, with a wry and ironic side to him that was by turns thought-provoking and absolutely hilarious. He spoke to Roy as an equal, and they could spend hours talking about politics, philosophy and even science. Grumman was also teaching Roy how to play chess. The basics of the game were simple enough to grasp, but the complex strategy required to play _well_ was something with which Roy continued to grapple. The officer was adept at the game, and had to hobble himself so that the matches could last longer than ten moves. Since he wasn't patronizing enough to actually let Roy win (_ever_), the boy didn't object to it.

Pleasant though such evenings were, they seldom concluded before midnight, and as he pushed the broad, heavy broom, Roy found himself almost regretting yesternight's frivolity. He yawned so expansively that his ears popped, and then sneezed out a snootful of paper dust.

As he rounded the base of the printing press, where a conveyor was carrying the last of the day's sheets to the cutting room, Roy heard a loud "_Dammit!_"

Curious as to who else was being forced to endure this unpleasant environment, Roy leaned his broom against a pillar and ducked under the belt. He carefully rounded the ventilation turbine and stopped dead.

A man was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a veritable sea of alchemical texts and large blueprints. He had a stick of chalk between his lips, and he was scowling at one of the pistons on the coolant pump – which had been switched off. The rod was cracked, and the smudged remains of a transmutation circle marked its side.

"Isn't it working?" Roy asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the presses.

The man jumped, looking over his shoulder. He was perhaps thirty-five, already balding, and it was obvious that he was under a great deal of stress at the moment.

"No, it's not!" he snapped, clearly harried. "Not that it's any business of yours."

"You're the company alchemist, aren't you?" Roy said, coming forward and squatting near the piston. "I'm studying alchemy."

"Yeah? Well, I'm not looking for kids to tutor," the man grunted crossly. "Especially not dirty, threadbare stock boys. Haven't you got work to do?"

"Yes," Roy admitted. "I'm just curious why it isn't working."

"If I knew that I'd be done with it by now! I've been at it for two hours straight, and this damned noise is going right to my head." He gestured expansively at the cacophonous machinery around them.

"Hmm," Roy agreed absently. He was studying the aerial schematic of the pump, fixing the shape of the piston in his mind and working through the physics of its motion. The rod was a load-bearing point, and it had most likely cracked under poorly distributed pressure from the flange above it.

"Buzz off," the alchemist said, plucking the sheet of drafting paper from his hands. "If you're not going to make yourself useful, at least have the decency to make yourself scarce!"

Roy ignored him, studying the remains of the transmutation circle that the man had tried. He almost laughed as he recognized it. It was intended for manipulating natural metals, like iron or maybe copper. According to the notes on the blueprints, the piston rod was a heavy grade of steel. In other words, an alloy of iron and carbon.

Metallurgy wasn't Roy's particular area of interest, for he leaned more towards the malleable elements, but anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of alchemy ought to know the difference between a pure metal and an alloy.

"Here, try this," Roy said, plucking the chalk from the lips of the alchemist, who had been gnawing it like a cigarette. A quick swipe of his dirty hand obliterated the inappropriate array, and he sketched the correct one. He closed his eyes, collected his thoughts, and dove into the transmutation even as the man let out a yelp of protest. There was the rush of power, the exhilarating moment of might, and then Roy rocked back onto his heels, smiling in satisfaction at the immaculately repaired rod.

"There," he said. "And if you..."

He stood up and drew the array again, this time on the head of the flange. The second transmutation was more taxing than the first, and accompanied by a groaning of metal as the machine's whole structure shifted by exactly two point four degrees.

"Perfect," Roy said firmly, removing his hands from the hot metal. "Now it won't crack again."

He expected maybe a word of praise, or at the very least a little thanks. Instead, the alchemist stood up and snatched back his chalk.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he snapped. "You can't just mess around with complex machinery! If I catch you doing anything like that ever again, I'll report you to management! _I'm_ the only one who's allowed to practice alchemy around here. Now get back to work, you lazy good-for-nothing brat!"

Startled, Roy retreated. Behind him, the alchemist was gathering up the books he had been searching for a circle that he really _ought_ to have memorized. As he picked up his broom and bend his head over the menial task at hand, Roy couldn't help but resent, ever so slightly, the fact that an obvious imbecile was allowed to earn a living with his art, while _he_ – who was at least _competent_ – had to sweep floors and haul boxes and clean the bathrooms.

_discidium_

It was one week later that the company alchemist, whose name Roy had discovered was Lambert, cornered the teen while he was occupied in the latter task.

"You," he said. "Mustang, isn't it?"

Roy nodded, wondering what was coming. Probably a confrontation, he thought. Perfect. He was on his hands and knees, scrubbing the floor next to the urinal trough, and he was going to have to try to hold his own against an angry adult.

"Listen..." Lambert said, glancing over his shoulder and then at the empty stalls as if fearful of eavesdroppers. He crouched down so that he didn't tower quite so dramatically over Roy. "You know a bit of alchemy."

"Yes," Roy said cautiously. He wasn't sure what he was really admitting to, and it made him uncomfortable that the man was asking a question to which he should already know the answer.

"Well, I could use an assistant. I'd make sure it didn't interfere with any of your regular duties, but now and then you could take the odd repair that I haven't got time to do," Lambert suggested. "I'd pay, of course," he added when Roy made no immediate reply.

"How much?" the boy asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice. The mention of payment had sent his mind into calculation mode.

"Two hundred _sens_ a week?" Lambert asked.

The note of hesitation in his voice wasn't lost on Roy: he wasn't sure it was enough. "Four hundred," Roy countered.

"Done!" said Lambert. He agreed a little too quickly, which should have tipped Roy off that he had shot too low, but the youth was only thinking how this would double his meagre income.

"So how will we..." Roy gestured a little helplessly.

"You just do your job as always, and I'll come to you if I can put any work your way," Lambert told him. "Oh, and Mustang? This is strictly between you and I. I'm not supposed to let other people mess with the machines – but I can tell you've got a lot of promise, and I don't mind giving a diligent student a leg up now and then. But if management ever found out, we'd both be in a _lot_ of trouble. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Roy said. Satisfied, the so-called alchemist left him alone. Roy returned to his scrubbing, distracting himself from the unpleasantness of the task by calculating to the last coin just how much more quickly he could amass the impossible sum of fifteen thousand _sens_ with this windfall.

Though he knew that the man was using him, and would only send him to do transmutations he couldn't manage himself, it didn't occur to Roy how badly he was being exploited. The truth was that Lambert was terrified lest anyone find out what had happened that night in the print room. That a not-quite-sixteen-year-old had done with ease what he could not was a fact that would, if brought to light, most likely cost him his job. As an alchemist employed to repair and maintain the presses, he earned five thousand _sens_ a week. Protecting that income and his reputation was well worth the four hundred that Roy had demanded.

Blissfully ignorant of all of this, however, Roy watched with delight as his tin can full of bank notes grew ever fuller, and as the weeks crawled by towards the day when he might apply to the National Academy.

_discidium_

In March, the applicants to the military academies were obliged to report to their regional headquarters for assessment prior to enrolment. The requirement of having an officer of a certain rank (that rank depending upon the school to which an individual was applying) helped limit the number of hopefuls each year. The essay that every applicant was required to write weeded out another fistful. Last of all came the physical examination, which culled away those unsuitable for active military service.

Roy's application was endorsed by a brigadier general and a war hero. Maes had helped him polish and perfect that damned composition. The thought of the physical exam made him absolutely sick.

Roy wasn't feeble. He was quick on his feet, and pretty good in a scuffle. The months of hauling boxes of books had endowed his limbs and his chest with compact muscles that, though hardly visible, enabled him to perform as well as most boys his age. He was nimble and flexible, and though he lacked athletic finesse he had decent endurance. The fitness testing didn't scare him. It was the medical exam that was to follow.

After an hour of jogging, jumping, push-ups, crunches and tumbling in a crowd of other teens, Roy was at once confident in his abilities and ashamed of his appearance. He measured up as far as performance, as he knew that he would. However, the other young men in the group of fifty being evaluated at Central Headquarters were all tall, strapping specimens; solid Amestrian stock with ruddy skin and broad, muscled shoulders. Pale and raven-haired Roy, with his almond-shaped grey eyes, his inadequate height and his lean, wiry strength, was dwarfed by these giants. He was painfully conscious of the differences, as they queued up in the foyer of the clinic where the medicals were to take place.

Inside the front door, a nurse handed Roy a brown paper bag. "Undress and put your clothes in there," she said.

"_Undress_?" Roy echoed, looking anxiously around. Surely she didn't want him to strip down in public! In front of all the other candidates?

"Just to your underwear," the woman said impatiently. "Hurry up."

Roy stepped to the side, where several other candidates were disrobing quickly. He swallowed hard. Why hadn't Maes told him that they had to do this? He thought despairingly of the disgraceful state of his undergarments, but there was nothing for it. He undressed as quickly as he could, folding his clothing and putting it in the bag. He returned to the nurse, trying not to notice the scornful frown that she shot at his discoloured undershirt with its armholes sliced to accommodate growing shoulders. Flushing despite himself, Roy joined the line of young men waiting their turn with the doctor.

It took nearly an hour and a half for them to work down to the "M"s, but at last Roy stepped into the little examining room. A young, blonde sergeant perched on a stool in the corner, a clipboard on his knee. By the examination table stood a man in a white coat. His dark hair was cropped into a close crew-cut, and his craggy face was unsmiling.

"Name?" he said.

"Roy Mustang," the boy answered.

"Age?"

"Sixteen."

"Like hell."

Roy swallowed hard. "Admissions has my birth records," he said as stoutly as he could. Apparently it came across with much more confidence than he had expected, for the physician's eyes widened ever so slightly.

"Right," he said, his voice drawling a little with sarcasm. "Forget I said anything. Get over here."

Roy hefted himself onto the table, sitting still as the man used a tool to look into his ears, then placed a wooden stick on his tongue as he checked his teeth and tonsils. A rough thumb held his eyelids back as the doctor studied his corneas. His temperature was taken, and a sphygmomanometer was slid onto his arm, which in conjunction with the stethoscope on his arm measured his blood pressure. Reflexes were tested with a little hammer, and the physician thumped his chest with two fingers while listening to the sounds. As he worked, the man dictated notes to the sergeant, who wrote them on Roy's card.

Then came the moment Roy had been dreading. The doctor pointed at the scale in the corner of the room. Roy felt his heart sink.

"D-do I have to?" he murmured, drawing an arm over his thin abdomen.

"Good question," the man said. "Let me think. _Yes_. Now hurry up. I've got twenty-three more of you little punks to see before I can get back to the hospital where _real_ soldiers are waiting for my life-saving prowess."

They sure weren't waiting for his charming bedside manner, Roy thought miserably as he stepped onto the scale. The doctor adjusted the weights on the arm. Roy watched as he slid them up to a hundred and forty pounds. The arm didn't balance. Down to 130. Still, it was too heavy. A hundred and twenty-five, 120. A hundred and eighteen. A hundred and seventeen. Finally, 115; the minimum weight for males entering military service.

The doctor sucked his teeth as he let go. Roy held his breath, willing the bar to rise.

It didn't.

"Huh."

The physician's chest jerked as he grunted. Then his hand moved to the weight, inching it down further. Roy watched in despair as it passed 110. At one hundred and six pounds, the arm rose ever so slightly. A nudge from the physician's finger brought the marker to 104, and the bar finally levelled itself.

Cold despair flooded Roy's limbs. He wasn't heavy enough. He'd be rejected, he'd have to go back to working in the publisher's warehouse, and worst of all... he would have nothing to show Hawkeye-sensei. No proof that he was following through on his plans, taking action to support his intentions. He wouldn't be able to return to Hamner. He wouldn't be able to see Riza...

He was so lost in the whirlpool of desolation that he didn't see the appraising eye raking over his lean body and his ragged underclothes.

"One hundred sixteen pounds," the doctor said dryly, dragging the weight back to tare. Roy looked up at him, eyes wide with astonishment. Steely eyes met his. "Get off, genius."

Hastily, Roy backed off of the scale. In the corner, the sergeant was staring at him.

"Are you sure, sir?" he asked sceptically. "He doesn't look—"

"One hundred sixteen pounds," repeated the physician. He reached into the breast pocket of his lab coat and took out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one free, clamped it between his lips, and lit it with a deftly produced match. "This one's a pass: fit for unrestricted military service."

The sergeant noted it, and then handed the clipboard to the physician. He signed the card with a messy scrawl, and then thrust it into Roy's hand.

"Thank you, sir," stammered the teen.

The doctor scowled at him. "Why thank me?" he asked. "It's what I'm getting paid to do. Now get out and send in the next sucker."

Roy obeyed, trying to make out the signature of the man who had lied so that he could be accepted to the Academy. All he could discern from the strange scribble was that the name ended with an "X".

_discidium_

Classes at Central Academy convened in the second week of August. By the first of September, Roy wasn't at all sure that he had made the right decision.

The military was an organization whose very existence depended upon the discipline and obedience of its members. Respect for the chain of command was paramount, but just as important was the ability to follow orders without question and without compromise. It was this principle, above all others, that had to be ingrained into the minds of all officers, and the it was at the commencement of their careers that the most arduous training in conformity was given.

The first three weeks, before the university courses began in mid-September, were dedicated to imbuing the new cadets with this sense of conformity. There were countless exercises in order and discipline. Every aspect of life was rigidly regimented. Not only the usual military standards, such as meticulous dress and tidy barracks, but also things that seemed absolutely absurd. When eating, for example, the first-year cadets were not allowed to speak. They had to lift their food to their mouth, set down the utensil they had used in its place next to the plate, focus their eyes front, and then – and _only_ then – they were allowed to chew it. Any violation of these rules was punished by, at best, a tongue-lashing from one of the drill instructors who hounded the new cadets. At worst, the perpetrator had to do push-ups on the spot, or report to the parade grounds during the brief hour of leisure before supper, to run punitive laps.

Many of the cadets responded (at least in the relative safety of the showers) with anger and indignation. The dissidents were the children of wealthy families, often with long military pedigrees, and they were used to getting their own ways. That everyone, from the NCOs who served the meals and patrolled the perimeter to the upper-year cadets to Brigadier General Frances, could order them about on a whim was a blow to their pride and an affront to their autonomy. Roy, on the other hand, had always been on the bottom of the heap – whether it was strangers, his sensei, or the foreman at the factory who were pushing him around. He was used to shutting his mouth and doing what he was told. His problem was that he just couldn't remember every single one of the thousands of rules, none of which were actually written down anywhere for reference.

Maes had explained that it was a game: an exercise in obedience. Once the academic year began, the new cadets would have a little more freedom, at least as far as eating and leisure time went. Still, Roy was nervous. He couldn't keep abreast of the current iron-clad rule, and if he couldn't, was he worthy of the military?

Then September came, and the fourth class cadets settled into a more reasonable (though still strictly regulated) routine. Better still, the elective courses at the National University began. Roy had chosen a class in organic chemistry, algebra, trigonometry and, because he knew it would be simple, introductory alchemy. Two mornings and one afternoon a week, he and a few dozen of his classmates would don their black hats with the silver dragon, walk to the edge of town, and board the streetcar bound for the college campus to attend lectures and participate in laboratory exercises.

Roy had been apprehensive about that aspect of his training, for he was haunted by memories of his abortive stint and the one-room school in Hamner. University, he quickly found, was an entirely different matter. The subjects were of interest to him, for he had chosen them, and they reflected well on his strengths. The reading was concrete, not abstract, and closely linked to the familiar concepts of mathematics and science. The professors, though cool and distant, were there to teach and not to punish.

October came, and Roy was settling in nicely. Besides the relief of having a firm routine and the freedom to study, he was also enjoying the life of relative luxury. He had three uniforms to wear: two duty and one dress. They were clean and whole, and he was both expected and more importantly equipped to keep them pressed and polished. His heavy black combat boots actually _fit_ him, and they did not leak. It was his pride to buff them each night before bed until they gleamed like waxed obsidian.

Three full meals every day conspired with the drills and physical conditioning, and by the first of November, when the cadets reported for their first quarterly fitness testing, he weighed in at one hundred thirteen pounds, seven ounces! The Academy doctor, who was not the one who had fibbed on Roy's application, made several comments about soft new recruits losing their puppy fat. Roy bore them with a smile, knowing that far from losing two and a half pounds, he had gained almost ten... and that it was solid (though not especially visible) muscle. He was then warned against weighing in too low next quarter, and prescribed a double ration of eggs. That suited him just fine.

His one travail was the lack of privacy. There were two hundred first-year cadets, and they bunked together in a pair of long, low barracks buildings that were little more than glorified barns with a toilet room on one end. A hundred young men occupied one, and ninety-seven, including Roy, shared the other with the three female cadets, whose cots were cordoned off from rest by two hospital screens. The other cadets respected their space as much as a crowd of young men could be expected to, and Roy couldn't help envying them.

His bed was in the middle of the barracks, and so he had no semblance of solitude, and no escape from the other cadets. They were an extroverted breed, and the teasing about personal appearance and habits was never-ending. Roy wasn't singled out, exactly, but his size and his colouring made him a popular butt. The communal showers (from which the three women were exempt) were a purgatorial ordeal. There were times when he caught himself thinking almost wistfully of his little tenement room.

He would have liked more time with Maes, too, but that was impossible. Fourth class cadets were not allowed to speak to upper-years unless spoken to, but since his friend loved nothing more than bounding up with a merry, "Hey, Roy! Guess what!"; that was no real barrier. More significant was the fact that the first-year cadets were kept too busy to get into any trouble, and the third-years carrying non-military majors (like Maes' psychology-turned-criminology) spent a great deal of time at the university. Although they now lived on the same campus and slept in buildings less than forty yards from one another, the two friends saw no more of each other than they had when Roy was dwelling in the slum.

November brought another interesting development. Furlough for the Victory Day week was standard for cadets in the upper years, and was granted as a reward to those fourth classmen who distinguished themselves academically at the midterm. Since Roy qualified for the Brigadier General's Honour Roll, he would have ten days' holiday, with which he might, they said, visit family. It seemed the perfect opportunity to do what he had been aching to do since he had been sent away: to return to Hamner, prove himself to his sensei, and learn the secrets of flame alchemy.

And more importantly, to see Riza again.


	76. November's Cruelty

**Chapter 76: November's Cruelty**

Maes sat on the end of Cadet Drosselmeyer's cot, watching as Roy carefully folded his military undergarments, then rolled them tightly in his standard-issue pyjamas before tucking them into his canvas kit bag. Most of the first-year cadets were attending a lecture on study skills and academic expectations, but those lucky few who had earned the privilege to leave campus for the Victory Day holiday were preparing to depart. Since the second class cadets had had yesterday afternoon off, Maes had nothing better to do than sit and watch.

"You're going to get creases no matter what," he said as Roy began to smooth the front of one of his pristine white uniform shirts. "Why don't you just cram it into the bag?"

"That's against regulations," Roy said tersely. He was nervous as hell, and having his friend commentating on his every move was not really helping.

"You're on _holiday_!" Maes chuckled. "Who cares about regulations? No, don't answer that; I know. Cadet Mustang, consummate military man, cares about them. No wonder they wanted you for the colour guard."

Roy smiled in spite of himself. He had recently been chosen to carry the colours of his class on the Academy's official drill squadron. This elite group marched in full dress at official functions, greeted dignitaries and competed against the four regional academies. It was a decided honour to be the only member of his class of two hundred selected as a part of this squad, and had he not been so preoccupied with other matters, Roy would have been proud enough to burst.

He finished rolling the shirt, and started on the next one. "Regulations are important," he said. "They give order to everything we do, and ensure that our actions are consistent and predictable."

"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel," Maes sneered good-naturedly. Lt. Col. Brighton was one of the senior members of faculty, and he taught several courses in deportment and the martial legal system. Roy had indeed been paraphrasing him, but he couldn't help feeling a little sheepish that Maes had seen through him so quickly. Maes laughed. "Don't worry. When you're a famous general, every cadet in Amestris will be quoting you."

"I don't want to be a general, I want to be a State Alchemist," Roy said quietly, and his stomach fluttered a little.

"The two aren't mutually exclusive," Maes said. When Roy did not comment, the older cadet frowned. "You're nervous."

"Not really," Roy lied.

"You're lying."

Damn it, Maes could _always_ see straight through him. It was so annoying!

"I'm nervous," Roy admitted in a whisper, hoping that none of the other cadets scattered through the enormous barracks could hear him.

"Don't be," Maes said. "He's your sensei. You lived with him for eight years. It's not like he's some horrible, violent monster. He _wanted_ you to come back, didn't he?"

"He gave me a year," Roy said. "It's been almost two. And... I don't know if he'll be so thrilled with what I've gone and done."

"What you've gone and done? You make it sound like you killed somebody or kidnapped a baby!" chuckled Maes. "All you've done is get a job, earn some money, quit a job, and enrol in the Academy – where you've done _very_ well, both academically and militarily."

"That's the thing," Roy said. "Sensei never set much store by the military. I mean, when he found out about Riza's teacher, he pulled her out of school, and he was only a _former_ soldier, not a current one. He thinks Amestris should be a democracy, but he doesn't seem to understand that we need the military. If we didn't exist, the Credoans and the Aerugans would destroy the country."

"A democracy?" Maes echoed incredulously. "You never said your sensei was a republican."

Roy flushed brilliantly. Of all the pejoratives slung about by the cadets, _republican_ was one of the worst. It implied treasonable tendencies, dishonour and a lack of the proper patriotism. "He isn't, he's not..." he stammered. "N-not really. He just... I mean, in _theory_ he thinks true democracy would be good for Amestris. That's all."

"Relax, I get it," Maes said softly. "If you really want to know, Dad's not happy with the current regime, either. Probably 'cause if we didn't need men so badly Ira and I never would've joined up. But I mean, it all depends on the Fuhrer, doesn't it? McFarland wasn't the greatest; maybe Bradley will be better. He's done pretty good so far, with his reforms to the school system and things."

"That's what I think," agreed Roy fervently. "You need a good Fuhrer for this system to work. Somebody who works for the good of the people, not for his own glory."

"Somebody like you?" Maes teased.

"No, but maybe Brigadier General Grumman," said Roy. "He'd make a good Fuhrer."

"He's too old," Maes said. "Why are you packing _those_?"

Roy looked up from the little cardboard box that held the gloves from his dress uniform. "I want to look my best," he said. "You know, when I see Hawkeye-sensei."

"You're going in full dress?" Maes was looking at him incredulously. Full dress was a major undertaking, and most cadets avoided it whenever possible. The full-skirted coat, the ceremonial sash and saber, gold buttons instead of brass, the crisp cap and the bright white gloves were somewhat constrictive and _very_ difficult to keep clean and orderly through the hours during which they were worn. Roy quite liked it, however. Full dress made him feel strong and self-sufficient... and almost normal-sized, too.

"No, of course not," Roy said. "I'm doing half dress. Duty uniform with cap and gloves."

"Ugh," Maes said. "Can't you just go in civvies? I mean, really! He's your sensei!"

Roy gave his friend a look of tired tolerance. "My civvies are practically rags," he said. "And they don't fit me properly now, since I've grown." There was a hint of pride in his voice. He was seventeen now, and he almost looked it, too.

"So buy new ones," Maes said. "That's what the _per diem_ is for."

"You know what I'm saving my money for," Roy said. He reached into his footlocker and took out the coffee can full of bank notes, tucking it carefully into his kit bag. He had twelve thousand, three hundred and nineteen _sens_, and he wasn't going to squander it on clothes. Not when he had a perfectly good uniform to wear. "It's bad enough I'll have to pay for a train ticket and lodgings."

"Aw, we're eligible for the military fares," Maes said; "and I don't see why we can't just crash at your sensei's."

Roy was secretly hoping that such an invitation would be extended, but he was not about to fix his hopes on it. He still wasn't sure whether Hawkeye would accept his enrolment as proof of his intent to become a State Alchemist and to use his skills for the benefit of the masses. For all he knew, he might be turned ignominiously out on the step again.

"You don't have to come," the younger cadet hedged uncomfortably.

"Where else have I got to go?" Maes asked. "I don't have the foggiest notion where Dad and the guys are, Ira's off on the southern front somewhere, and nobody in his right mind wants to spend a holiday with Eli. Besides, you could use a little moral support."

Roy shot him a wary glance, but Maes was merely stating a fact, not implying that Roy was unable to do this alone. He relaxed marginally. Secretly, he was very, very glad indeed that Maes wanted to come. Not only would he be good company on the two-day train ride, but he would also be a source of courage when it came to actually confronting his teacher.

The door at the end of the barracks slid open, and one of the second-year cadets on page duty came in. "Cadet Second Class Maes Hughes?" he called out in a deep, sonorous voice, ignoring the fourth class cadets who snapped to attention.

Maes looked over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

The third-classman saluted. "Sir. A civilian to see you, sir. He claims—"

The cadet was pushed aside by a lanky figure in a long travelling cloak. He was wearing a floppy felt hat, so Roy couldn't see his face, but Maes recognized him immediately.

"Tia!" he cried, springing to his feet. He waved off the messenger absently. "It's fine, he's my brother," he said.

The tinker strode across the room, pulling off his hat. He was apparently oblivious to the first-year cadets who watched him curiously. Maes hurried forward and hugged him, slapping him on the back.

"It's so good to see you!" he said. "Is everyone in town? Why'd you come all the way up to Central? Where are you camped? What..."

He stopped dead as he pulled out of the embrace and saw what had been obvious to Roy from the moment Tiath doffed his hat. Maes paled.

"Tia... what's wrong?"

The older man's face was haggard, deeply lined with worry and strain. His eyes were shadowed as if he had been without sleep, and his usually merrily twinkling eyes were clouded.

"I came on the train," he said huskily. "The others are all in South City. We weren't... we weren't sure if we should pull you out of school to come, but Eli said this week's a holiday?"

"That's right," Maes said. "But what—"

The tinker shook his head tersely. He pulled the soft leather glove from one hand, and rubbed his face. "It's... there's been an incident."

Maes seemed ready to vomit. Roy set down his bootblacking kit and rounded his cot, coming up behind his friend in case support – physical or emotional – might be needed. Tiath closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

"We got in to South City last week," Tiath said, dissembling a little as if he couldn't quite bring himself to be blunt. "The plan was to do a little catching up with Eli, pick up your letters, and then move on: Gareth thought we could winter in Dublith. Ben's had a rough year, so we wanted somewhere quiet. But..."

His face turned a horrible shade of grey and he started trembling a little. Maes grabbed his arm. "You okay, Tia?" he asked gently.

"Please, sit down," Roy said, taking the tinker's other elbow and guiding him down to his cot. He moved the kit bag to the floor and Tiath sank gratefully onto the mattress. Maes sat next to him, his eyes staring keenly through their spectacles.

"Tia?" he said softly, and Roy could tell that he feared the worst. "What happened to Ben?"

"Ben?" Tia echoed. Then he laughed a little, nasally. "No, not Ben... it's Ira."

"Oh," Maes said flatly. Then his aspect changed to one of bewildered fright. "But I've been staying abreast of the reports from the front. His name isn't on any of the casualty lists, or—"

"He's not dead," Tiath said. "Or, he wasn't when I left. He was shot on a raid into Aerugan territory. The ball went in just between his left floating ribs, and it came out under his shoulder blade. The stupid idiot just got the medic to patch him up and kept fighting. He passed out on the march back to camp."

He swallowed hard, and Roy took his tin cup from the nightstand, striding down the room to the toilets, where he filled it from the sink. By the time he reached the bed again, Tiath seemed to have collected himself a little.

"... at the military hospital in South City," he was saying to Maes, whose expression had settled into one of calm capability. "The doctor says it nicked his lung, and they're not sure, but it might have grazed his heart, too. Mostly it seems to have gone through muscle, but he lost a _lot_ of blood, and then he started running a fever. We didn't want you to hear it through the military grapevine."

"No, I'm glad you came," Maes assured him.

"When are you leaving?" Roy asked, looking at his friend.

"Leaving?" Maes echoed. "You and I are heading out tonight—"

Roy shook his head. "No, you've got to go and see Ira. Doesn't he, Tiath?"

The tinker regarded him with surprise. "You've really grown up," he said. Then he frowned. "There's a little girl in Hamner who misses you something awful."

Roy's heart somersaulted painfully. It hadn't occurred to him that Maes' siblings would have continued to visit Hamner, nor that Ben's friendship with Riza meant they would most likely have news of her. A sudden overwhelming desire to ply Tiath with questions surged through his body... but he restrained himself. This wasn't the time. The Hughes family had a crisis that they needed to deal with. Besides, Riza _couldn't_ miss him "something awful", or she would have returned his letters.

"You should probably leave as soon as you can," he said to Maes. "We can all go to the station together: I'm almost packed."

Maes nodded numbly. "I... yeah..." he said. "Yeah, we can all go together. Roy, I'm so sorry. I want to come with you, I really do..."

"No." Roy shook his head stoically. His words were firm. "Family is much more important. I'll be fine: I'm only going home. Your brothers need you."

Looking at Tiath, he reflected grimly, they really, truly did.

_discidium_

So it was that instead of enjoying two days of his friend's buoyant company, Roy sat on a hard wooden seat in a third-class car of the East City express, staring out the window and worrying.

He worried about Ira Hughes, who was quite possibly dying from wounds sustained in battle. He worried about Maes, who had never had such a family crisis before. He worried about light-hearted Tiath, who had looked so sick with care and grief. He worried about Riza's friend, Benjamin, who was apparently not faring well, and who now had the stress of an injured brother to cope with.

He worried about the impending encounter with his sensei. His doubts haunted every waking moment and made his attempts to nap in his seat all the more difficult. Every time he thought of where he was going and why, he felt vaguely nauseated. There were so many imponderables in the equation. Would his sensei be angry that he had taken an additional year? Would he be disgusted by the path that he had chosen? Would he even be willing to teach him the flame alchemy that he needed to further his goals and attempt the State Alchemist's exam?

There were other worries, too. How had Riza fared in his absence? He knew she didn't care for him, but he still loved her, and not a day passed when he did not feel some niggling guilt for leaving her alone with her grim father in that big, empty house. He hoped she was well. He hoped she would be willing to talk to him, even if she didn't much want him. He hoped she was happy and healthy and content.

By the time he reached Hamner station on Sunday night, he was exhausted. He took his kit bag from the luggage rack, and disembarked, politely reciprocating the conductor's respectful salute. The cold air hit his face with all of November's heartless cruelty. Roy was very glad indeed of his military greatcoat and the sturdy wool of his uniform.

The clock on the station roof read a quarter past eleven. Roy sighed. He couldn't drop in on his sensei at this hour. Even though the alchemist was most likely in his study, labouring on into the night, he might not come to the door. Worse, he might shout for Riza to answer it, and Roy knew that the girl, at least, would be sleeping. He couldn't wake her, even indirectly.

He was not sure where to go, but there had to be a place where one could rent a room for the night. It occurred to him, rather absurdly, that he had lived in this town his entire life, and he had no idea whether there were rooms at the tavern, or a boarding house that took casual travellers. He would start at the tavern, he decided. Over the last two months he had learned that there was a certain respect and privilege afforded to those who wore the blue uniform – even the cadets. Late in the evening though it was, he would not be turned away.

As he walked through the dark, familiar streets, he felt a strange warmth suffusing his chest. A little pang would start up each time he passed some familiar landmark: the cenotaph park with its marble monument and its little fountain; the dry goods store where he had gone so many times for paper and ink; the bank and the greengrocer's and the empty house that – and his eyes prickled briefly – had belonged to Doctor Bella. At last he came to the tavern where, as he had hoped, there were rooms to be had. As he made arrangements for lodgings and a hot dinner, he was aware of the curious eyes on his back. In all likelihood the other patrons did not recognize him as the alchemist's bony apprentice. He was just a soldier to them; a member of the vast blue body that stretched its protective presence across the land. Roy found that oddly satisfying.

_discidium_

There was blood on the handkerchief. Mordred stared at it numbly, not really processing what he was seeing. There was blood on the handkerchief.

These last months, his days had been nothing but a blur of pain and asphyxiation. The cough was worsening, and infection after infection had immured him in bed for days at a time. At least the girl was always at hand to fetch water for him, or broth, or to run to the pharmacy for paregoric and mentholatum. It had occurred to the alchemist some days ago that he was dying.

He did not want to die.

There was so much work to do. He realized that now. So much that he had never done. Flame alchemy was the most powerful and unique incarnation of the great art, but it was imperfect. There was still so much to learn. So much to do... and he had done none of it.

He might have, once. He could have furthered his research, continued to push the boundaries of science and of truth. He could have poured his energies into that, instead of into the concealing of his art. If he had, perhaps things would have been different...

The girl was a cruel reminder of his failings. In his mind, she was always his beautiful little baby, toddling around the house with her merry laugh and her bouncing plaits. She was his _chibi-chan_, alight with the joys of curiosity and discovery; brilliant, spirited, precocious, joyous. In reality, she was a pale little nymph with close-cropped hair, dressed in sombre clothes that she somehow, despite the lack of money, managed to keep looking as neat and presentable as a schoolmarm's threads or the trappings of a soldier. She was quiet, spiritless, practically invisible – an apparition that haunted the hallways and clung to the kitchen, incapable of loving or of being loved.

Mordred knew, deep in his heart, that this was his fault. He had created her, this silent, wide-eyed creature. Long ago, when her giggle had still rang through the house, and her little arms had still twined lovingly about her neck, he might have taken steps to preserve her perfection. Instead, he let himself grow distant, negligent, at times even abusive, as he poured his soul and his energy into his research.

No. Not into his research, as the foolish children had thought. Into _hiding_ his research. Into protecting what he had already done, instead of accomplishing more. The last ten years were wasted. Every day since Davell's death had been wasted. The secrecy and mistrust was a poison that had spread from his alchemy into every aspect of his life, choking away the goodness and leaving only rottenness and emptiness and so much regret.

The one thing that he had accomplished was the boy. Roy Mustang, whom he had raised out of the gutter, taken into his home, trained as an alchemist. He wondered where Roy was. The proscribed year had passed, and the lad had not returned. Perhaps he would never return. Mordred would not blame him.

Still, he thought as he coughed again, and the iron tang of blood tainted his lips, he would have liked to see his apprentice once more before he died. He wished – oh, how he wished! – that he had had the time to teach him the secrets of flame alchemy. No. The _sense_ to teach him. To pass the secrets on, as someone had once told him, to the apprentice, for that was what apprentices were for. If he had done that, if he had given his art to Roy, then there would have been no need for the _other thing_. The thing he had done to Riza...

Riza. He had to tell her, he thought feverishly. He had to tell her that he was sorry. That he had loved her, and that he realized how he had hurt her. How he had destroyed her, body and soul.

He was sorry. He was sorry. Oh, God, he thought, unconsciously invoking the deity of his long-dead Lian; he was so sorry.

Mordred felt his eyes drifting wearily closed. So he would fall asleep here again, propped up at the desk to which he had chained himself long ago. Another night in the study. Another night of oblivion.

He'd tell her later, he promised himself. Maybe tomorrow. For now, he slept, stirring now and then only to cough hollowly as the blood and putrescence slowly choked his ravaged lungs.


	77. The Strings of Life

**Chapter 77: The Strings of Life**

The house was a portrait of squalor and despair.

Roy stood in the road, resplendent in his dress uniform – which with no Maes to mock him, he had decided to wear after all. He could scarcely believe the change two years had wrought on the Hawkeye home. True, he remembered the paint peeling from the wooden siding, but surely it had never left such gaping scars of naked wood. He recalled one or two loose slates, but certainly not whole sections of the roof stripped of the proper cover. The windows were filthy, and despite the thick grey clouds that made twilight of the afternoon no lights shone within. The path was unraked and the front lawn, which he had always kept neatly cropped and tended, was wildly overgrown. The grass had gone to seed, and it was interspersed with spindly weeds, some of which were two feet high or more. They were brown and withering, waiting only the first frost to slay them entirely.

Roy stared at the desolation before him, at the miserable edifice that was the nearest thing he had to a home. He remembered Doctor Bella once saying that the house he remembered was only a shadow of what it once had been. Now he understood how she felt. The genteel shabbiness that he had left behind and looked back upon almost nostalgically had degenerated into _this_. The decay and the wretchedness was disillusioning and painful to behold. It took Roy a long time to brace himself against the fear of what he might find inside. When at last he was ready, he climbed the chipped steps and rapped at the big front door.

There was no answer. He tried the handle, but the door was locked. Briefly Roy considered using alchemy to open it, but he decided against it. It seemed too disrespectful: a violation of social niceties and common courtesy. He paused for a moment, one gloved hand plucking at his greatcoat, and then rounded the house instead.

He halted to stare at the washtub where he had once received a harsh scrubbing from Hawkeye-sensei, and where he had unwittingly performed his first transmutation. As he moved into the back yard, more memories assailed him. There was the tree stump table where he had reigned as a reluctant Fuhrer. There was the path that had served as a river for Major Hawkeye the Special Soldier, as she galloped to Central with missives of monumental importance. A rectangle of overgrown earth was all that remained of the garden where he and Maes had muddled through the art of raising food from the earth. The elm tree in the corner still bore the deserted treehouse, which called to mind memories of a harsh beating and unparalleled emotional anguish. And there was the hedge, where he had hidden all those years ago until a little girl with golden hair and carmine eyes had lured him out with bits of bread.

His whole life seemed to be passing before his eyes, and it was a dizzying and frightening thing. For the first time, Roy felt old, as if his childhood had lasted decades instead of a handful of months. He felt isolated and alone and nervous... and he wished that Maes were here.

Steeling himself, he moved to the back door, and knocked again. Perhaps Riza was in the kitchen, and had not heard him at the front door. But no, there was no answer. The door, however, was unlocked, and after a moment's hesitation Roy let himself in.

The kitchen was cold, for there was neither fire in the stove nor any wood in the box. Though the dishes were clean and the table and countertops had been wiped down, there was a feeling of grime and decay that the room had never had before. Roy looked around for some sign of Riza, but there was nothing: not even shoes or a shawl. He moved into the corridor and mounted the stairs. The fourth one from the top was the bad step and he had to sip it or it would go off like a—

No, he realized too late, it was the third step from the top. The sharp report like gunfire echoed through the empty house. Well, if there was anyone here to hear, they knew of his presence now. Roy continued up the stairs.

"Riza?" he called softly as he stepped into the little hallway. "Riza, are you here?"

The door to her room stood ajar. He peered inside, but there was nothing to be seen but a sewing basket and a heap of well-darned underclothes on the bed, and the hated copy of Plato's _Select Dialogues _on the window seat. Roy withdrew quickly, feeling that he had trespassed where he had no right.

His sensei's room was empty. The air inside reeked of infection and stale perspiration. The blankets were rumpled on the bed, and there were greasy stains on the pillowcases. Not caring about propriety, Roy crossed the room and forced open the window. The cold autumn air tumbled in, bringing with it the clean, icy scent of the prairie. Roy half wanted to strip off the filthy bedclothes, but he stopped himself, remembering just in time that he was wearing his immaculate dress uniform, snowy gloves and all.

Last, he opened the door to Davell's room, where he had slept for so many years. It looked untouched since his departure, and Riza was not there.

Roy retreated down the stairs, this time overleaping the correct step. Despite the lack of heat, he found himself sweating, so he removed his greatcoat, draping it carefully over his right arm. He smoothed the full skirts of his dark blue dress coat, and adjusted the saber that hung at his back. His left glove moved lovingly over the bright gold buttons on the broad lapel. Roy smiled a little. He loved the gloves. They made his hands feel strange: smooth and clean, as if they never had been and never would be soiled, as if nothing could ever spoil the faultless waxen white of the heavy linen.

As he stood there, reflecting on his hand in its pale sheath, he heard a familiar sound. It was a thick, croupy cough punctuated with desperate gasps for breath. Roy's pulse quickened and his palms grew slick. His sensei was here.

He approached the door of the study, waiting for the coughing jag to ebb into silence. Then he knocked.

"Come in," a dull, lifeless voice intoned from within.

Swallowing hard and squaring his shoulders, Roy opened the door.

The study was lit by a single candle in a sconce by the empty fireplace. All the others seemed to have burned down long ago. The drapes were drawn over the window, and the air was heavy with the smell of an unwashed body. At the large, splendid desk in the centre of the room sat Hawkeye-sensei. He was bent over a journal, writing something in brownish ink that Roy could tell was homemade from lamp soot and walnut shells.

"What is it? What do you want?" the alchemist said, not looking up from his work. "Don't tell me you haven't enough money for the bread, because I don't have any more to give you."

Roy had to clear his throat before he could speak. "Sensei?" he said. "It's me."

"It is I," corrected the man reflexively. His yellow hair, now fading to grey, fell in a lank, greasy curtain around his head, obscuring his face in narrow strands. It quivered as he raised his head and turned to look at the intruder. "Oh..." he exhaled softly.

"I've returned, sensei," Roy murmured, unconsciously standing straighter and pressing his left palm against his thigh in the approved military fashion.

"I see that," Hawkeye-sensei said. His voice was devoid of all affect: flat and toneless. It was impossible to gauge what emotion – if any – lay behind the ashen mask of apathy. The pale eyes flickered over the youth's body. "So you became a soldier after all... Roy."

There was something strange in the way that the alchemist said his name. It was chilling, eerie.

"Yes, sensei," Roy said quietly. His voice, though low and respectful, was firm with a confidence he did not feel. At the Academy, cadets were expected to speak with conviction, never with doubt. It was quickly becoming habit. "I thought that eventually I might pass the State Alchemist exam and devote myself to the service of my country."

Through this, the alchemist had still been writing. Now the pen froze, and he looked up, his sunken eyes widening slightly but remaining empty and horribly dead. His thin lips narrowed into a frown.

"Apparently you're still not ready to learn my flame alchemy," he said coldly.

The words ripped through Roy's charade of confidence: they were the very ones he had dreaded. He had been terrified all along that he would not be found worthy, and now it seemed that that nightmare was coming to fruition. Still, if he was not good enough, at least he had a right to know why.

"But sir," he protested; "have I not mastered all the fundamentals of alchemy? Everything that you've taught me?"

"You have," Hawkeye-sensei said, his words cold as ice and dripping with derision; "and it was a mistake to teach even the basics to someone who would stoop so low as to become a dog of the military."

There it was. Roy's despair made him bold. "But alchemy should be used 'for the masses', right?" he protested, throwing his teacher's old axiom back in his face. "Sensei... I believe that working in the military would allow me to help the people. Our nation is exposed to constant threats from neighbouring countries. In order to protect our citizens, it's imperative that we strengthen our military, and alchemy is—"

"I'm tired of hearing that kind of rhetoric." Hawkeye's words cut across Roy's frantic attempt at an explanation, derailing it before he had a chance to explain how the military held the power over social policies, how a good officer could petition for change, for laws to aid the poor and protect the helpless. How...

Roy realized that a long silence had elapsed. He looked at his teacher, the linen under his dressing gown unwashed, his hair filthy, his face gaunt and pale. He thought of the untended yard, the barren kitchen, the wretchedness upstairs... Nausea churned beneath his ribs, and he cast his eyes away, his brows furrowing in misery that he could not wholly hide.

"Sensei..." he whispered. "If I had your vast knowledge, I know it would be simple for to obtain a State Alchemist's licence. Honestly, I can hardly bear to see someone as gifted as you living in such squalor. If _you_ became a State Alchemist, you would have access to grants that would take your research to new heights." And feed you, he thought; and buy new clothes for Riza, and ensure that you never had to be poor or desperate or hungry again... "You could—"

"There's no need for that," Hawkeye-sensei said bleakly. There was bitterness in his voice, and perhaps a little regret. "I completed my research years ago."

Roy blinked in confusion. Finished his research years ago? But Hawkeye-sensei had still been working on it, been consumed by it, when he had sent Roy away. Surely...

But his teacher was speaking again. "My technique is the greatest and most powerful form of alchemy," he was saying, but there was no pride in his voice. No satisfaction. "But in the wrong hands, it could also be the most deadly."

Roy remembered the fire, the great dancing flames that had licked the air and twisted in and out at his sensei's demand. True, he thought, such power could be used for evil... but also for good. For so much good.

"Unfortunately, I became complacent."

Hawkeye-sensei was staring off into space, his empty eyes focused somewhere above Roy's head as he continued with his desolate confession. "Alchemists are creatures who must seek truth as long as they live, and when alchemists cease to think, they die. That is why the human I was died a long time ago."

The empty despair in his voice closed a fist of ice around Roy's heart. "Please, don't say that!" he begged. He needed his sensei as he once had been: strong, powerful, firm in his convictions. He needed the Hawkeye-sensei he remembered; the Hawkeye-sensei he loved in place of the father he could not remember. "I beg you, sensei! Please, use your power for the good of the people..."

The old man's chest jerked beneath his soiled cravat. His lips twitched spastically. "Power..." he croaked out, his shoulders twitching with a tiny, suppressed cough. "So you desire power..." He drew in a laboured breath. "... Roy?"

His head jerked back, thrusting his face upwards as a horrible, burbling cough welled up. From his mouth sprang a spurt of dark carmine blood. Roy cried out in horror as his sensei pitched forward, his face smashing brutally into the notebook before him. The blood spattered the page, still streaming from Hawkeye's pain-tautened mouth.

"Sensei!" Roy yelped. "_Sensei!!_"

"I watched you grow with my own eyes," the alchemist choked out; "and I thought of passing it on to you. What a pity... I have no more time left to teach you..."

"Wha—" A helpless noise of confusion tore from Roy's throat. Surely his teacher wasn't saying... he couldn't be dying! He couldn't! Roy put his hand on Hawkeye's shuddering shoulder, as if by doing so he could brace him against the onslaught of death.

"All the notes from my research..." Hawkeye-sensei forced the words out hoarsely, squandering his flagging strength as he struggled to pass on this vital information. "... they're held by my daughter. If you promise..."

The blood was dripping from the tabletop onto the floor. Each syllable pushed out more of the lurid black fluid, and the slow pattering of the droplets against the floorboards seemed to send daggers of anguish into Roy's soul.

"... if you promise to use my alchemy... my power... with the right intentions, she will let you have it all..."

Roy could hardly process what he was hearing. Riza had his master's research? She would let him have it? But he was supposed to learn it from his sensei! He couldn't just _die_... not now... not when Roy had just returned... not when they could all go back to being a family again...

"I'm sorry..." the alchemist exhaled.

Roy shook him a little, panic overriding common sense. "Get ahold of yourself, sensei! Please!" he cried.

"I was too immersed in my research to do anything for you..." The sounds were growing weaker. With each word there was more blood on the desk, and less life in the speaker. Roy frantically, desperately tried to call back the dying man.

"Sensei!" he repeated. "Hawkeye-sensei!"

"I'm sor-r-ry, Riza..." he gasped. Then his whole body convulsed under Roy's hands. "Roy... I l-leave my daughter to you... please..."

He couldn't! He _couldn't _die! Not now! Not _now_...

"Please. Please..."

_discidium_

The walk from the village was a cold and weary one. Riza clutched her basket with it's lonely loaf of stale bread, and tried not to worry. She couldn't help it. There was no money, there was no food, her father was getting sicker every day, and she was so tired and unhappy and alone.

She hugged her shawl to her shoulders her free arm, and burrowed a little into the warmth of her nutmeg-coloured cardigan. It was a present from Ben Hughes: he had picked it out for her in East City, and brought it with him that spring. Since her old coat would not accommodate her shoulders or her growing bosom, the knitted garment was the cosiest thing she owned. More comforting still was the memory of Ben's face, now healthier and no longer so pale. He was still taking his doses of whiskey, but only four times in a day instead of hourly. Between them, Absalom and Gareth were doing their best to help Ben heal, and Riza hoped that he _would _get better.

She didn't know if the same was true of her father. He was so sick, and the cough was worse, and sometimes he brought up blood along with the sputum. She wanted him to see a doctor, but there was no money, and the new physician did not offer his services _pro bono_ to those in need as Doctor Bella had. If only Doctor Bella were here...

Riza knew she couldn't think that way. She was a great grown girl now, nearly thirteen. She couldn't be a child, longing for things she could never have. She turned into the yard, her cheap black pumps shuffling through the overgrown grasses, and moved around to the back door.

The kitchen was no warmer than the countryside. There was no wood to burn, and Riza had not had the strength to get up this morning to gather brush from the creek bluffs. She was always tired now, and always hungry.

She set down her basket and took her mother's shawl from her head. She remembered Momma... she did, she told herself. She remembered Momma's warm arms, and her cookies, and her deep, red eyes...

She remembered Momma shrieking like a wild thing, kicking at Mr. Mustang, then only a child, while he lay in a ball of rags on the floor. She remembered Momma limp and drowsy under the influence of laudanum. She remembered Momma in a big stranger's arms, crying out for Davell as she was carried from the house, never to return.

Maybe, Riza thought, she shouldn't try to remember Momma after all.

Her heart leapt a little, startled. She had heard a voice! Father was talking in his study. He often muttered in his sleep, but this sounded different. Had she heard another voice, ringing in soft reply? Was there someone else in the house?

She shook off the thought. That was absurd. There was never anyone else in the house. Since Mr. Mustang had abandoned them, the only other person to set foot under the roof was the man from the municipal offices who had come to turn off the gas in August because Father had no money to pay for it. Otherwise it was only the two of them: an ill and embittered old man, and a young girl who had failed to be the daughter he wanted.

Again, she heard her father's voice, and Riza realized that there _was_ someone else here. Perhaps the man from the township had come back. Perhaps he was going to turn off their water, too. Riza knew that that bill had gone unpaid again. They could use the water from the pump for washing, and even for drinking if they had to – though it tasted strange. But she wondered what they would do without the toilet. Riza wanted to cry, so bewildered and overburdened was she, but she knew that she could not. She wasn't a child. She mustn't weep.

There was a horrible cough, and Riza flinched. Father was always so angry when he was ill. She didn't want him to shout at her, but he surely would when he saw that she had no medicine, and no tea, and no soup bones to make the broth that was almost all that he would eat.

"Someone..." a desperate voice cried out. Riza nearly jumped out of her skin. It was not her father's voice, and it was raised in terror, not in anger.

"Someone call a doctor!"

It was the wail of a person who knew no help would come, but could not but shout into the void. Forgetting herself, drawn hypnotically to the frantic screams, Riza ran into the corridor.

"_Can anybody hear me_?"

She pushed the door open with a sharp _clack!_ and froze. Her father's desk was covered in blood that was streaming down and puddling on the floor. It was coming from Father's mouth, dribbling down his chin and staining his cravat. The man himself was hanging limply over the table, one arm lifeless and the other around the neck of a young man in military blue. His white gloves were smudged with gore, and he was clutching her father, holding him bodily up from the table. For a moment Riza hardly saw him, for she was staring with enormous eyes at the alchemist. His blond hair was dripping with blood, and his eyes were wide, more vacant than ever... and he wasn't breathing...

The world seemed to grind to a halt around her. Her father was dead. Riza knew without having to be told: he was dead. His empty eyes, the blood, the limpness of his motionless body. He was dead. At last the terrible illness that had plagued him for almost as long as she could remember had claimed its victim. And Riza was not sure how it made her feel...

Then someone shouted her name, horrified and panicked and yet oddly eager; part question, part expletive, part exclamation...

"_RIZA?!"_

The world unfroze. Her eyes snapped to the face of the young man. If possible, the crimson orbs grew even wider.

It was Mr. Mustang.


	78. Vex Not His Ghost

**Chapter 78: Vex Not His Ghost**

Roy stood in the corner of the shed that served as Hamner's morgue. His dress uniform was rumpled and his once-immaculate gloves were stained blackly with his sensei's blood, but he kept his hands rigidly at his sides and his shoulders squared back as he stood to attention. He was not at all sure that he could have maintained even this small dignity had it not been for the security of his garb and the familiar weight of his saber at his hip. It had taken all his willpower just to keep from weeping like a child.

Hawkeye-sensei was dead. He lay on the narrow metal table that was the predominant feature of the drab room. A muslin sheet covered him head to toe, and his clothing lay on a shelf, awaiting disposal as infectious material. Roy had only just been allowed to come back inside, for the post-mortem was complete. The physician, who like Bella Greyson before him doubled as the coroner, was conferring with the young man who had once been the undertaker's boy, and was now a partner in the business.

From his place by the door, Roy could see Riza where she sat on the back step of the military outpost house. Though she had grown extraordinarily in the two years he had been away, Roy could not help thinking that she looked very small and vulnerable now, in her pretty cardigan and her shabby skirt. They had scarcely spoken, for Roy had settled Hawkeye's body on the settee and gone straight for the doctor, lest he was mistaken about his master's state. Riza was certainly in shock: she would meet no one's gaze, and now sat with her hands and eyes in her lap.

Roy wanted to speak to her, but he did not know how. He could still hear himself blurting out her name like an oath. He did not know why he had been so stunned at the sight of her, for who else would he have expected? The tension of the moment, the change that the long months had wrought on her face and body, and the numbing, horrified realization that she was walking in on him after two years' absence as he held her father's bleeding corpse – all this had overridden logic and startled the exclamation from his lips, as harsh and crude and discordant as any cry of anger or accusation. It still echoed in his ears, and he found himself wishing with all his heart that their reunion might have happened under any circumstances but these.

"What relation are you to the deceased?" the doctor asked coolly, addressing Roy for the first time.

"I..." Roy's eyes flew to the body, nothing but a string of contours beneath the sheet. He swallowed hard, feeling vaguely ill. "He was my teacher."

"He died from excessive blood loss," the man said dispassionately. "Secondary to a severe pneumonitus affecting both lungs. He had probably been hemorrhaging for several days. The tissue I removed shows marked fibrosis. Did he have a history of respiratory illness?"

Roy nodded, his mind trying to translate the medical jargon. "He always had a bad chest," he said.

"I would be interested to see how far the damage had progressed: respirology is a particular interest of mine. Would you consent to an exploratory autopsy? In exchange I would be willing to cover the costs of a proper burial."

Roy blinked. "You want to _study_ him?" he said.

"For a few weeks, yes," the physician said. "With the weather growing so cold, it's the perfect time of year. I haven't had an opportunity to work with a cadaver since I left school."

The nausea redoubled. Cadaver? He was talking as if Hawkeye-sensei were nothing but a specimen in a lab. As a scientist, Roy understood the importance of research, and he knew that for human knowledge to expand certain proprieties had to be overlooked... but this was different! This was his sensei... Riza's father... it was _wrong_!

"No," he said. "I don't want that."

"I would also be prepared to offer an honorarium," the doctor added. "As a token of my gratitude."

"No, thank you," Roy repeated firmly. "We'll just bury him and be done."

"Be sensible, lad," the undertaker said. "Everyone knows the girl's a pauper. There's no way she can afford to bury the old man. Do you really want him in a ditch with half a dozen others, done over with lime? Doc here will see to it he has a place by his wife, with a headstone and everything."

"_I'll_ pay for the funeral," Roy said heatedly. "I don't want him cut up and... and... _studied_."

The doctor frowned. "You're making a mistake. Use your money for the taxes: the town will take the house to pay 'em if you don't. The girl hasn't got five _sens_ to her name. What'll she live off? I'll give ten thousand _sens_ and I'll pay for the funeral. All I want is a couple of weeks with the body."

Ten thousand _sens_. It would be enough for Riza to live off of for a little while, anyway. Roy had not realized that his teacher's financial situation had deteriorated to the point where his child might lose her home. He certainly couldn't let that happen. Still, he couldn't bear the thought of his teacher being used for medical experimentation...

"No," a firm, quiet voice said.

The three men turned. In the doorway stood Riza, her face ghastly pale and her white hands folded behind her back. Her carmine eyes were steely with determination.

The doctor eyed her. "No what, girlie?" he asked.

"I just want to bury my father," she said. "I don't want to wait a couple of weeks. I don't want your charity, either. I'll do quite nicely on my own."

There was a stunned silence. The physician looked to the undertaker, but found no help there. Then he turned back to the two resolute faces – to the crimson eyes and the black. To the pair of stolid adults staring out at him from the bodies of thin teens whose youth could be hidden neither by the sober garb of a schoolteacher nor the deep blue of a military uniform. He scowled.

"Very well, then," he said. "Do as you please. You'll need to pay the notary to draw up a certificate of death. He can find me in my surgery when he needs me to sign it."

With that, he moved from the shed and was gone. The undertaker glanced at Roy and Riza, looking a little guilty. Muttering that he would be outside if they needed him, he too left the room.

Roy turned to Riza and watched her composure crack ever so slightly.

"I h-haven't any money," she whispered.

"Don't worry," Roy said, keeping his voice low so that it would not quaver. "I have twelve thousand _sens_. I'll take care of everything."

For an instant, relief and gratitude flooded into Riza's face, and she almost met his eyes. At the last instant, her gaze fell away, shifting to her father's lifeless form.

"How did he die?" she asked stoically.

"It was his lungs," Roy answered. The words were awkward, strained, nothing like what he had hoped. He wanted to gather her into his arms and hold her and do what he could to comfort her, but instead it was all he could do to stand there and give clumsy, hollow answers. "He always did have a bad chest."

"Since he caught my chickenpox," Riza agreed flatly. There was something almost like guilt in her voice, but Roy couldn't quite work up the courage to admit to noticing it. In the silence, she smoothed her cardigan with one hand. It was trembling. "It was very good of you to come back to visit, Mr. Mustang," she said. "Will you be staying long?"

"I have five days," Roy said. "I'm on furlough."

She looked at him... but not at his face. Her eyes took in his uniform, straying no higher than the National Academy medallion where service medals would one day hang.

"Your old room isn't ready," she said. "You didn't write."

It was true, Roy thought guiltily. He _hadn't_ written to her of his plans to return. He wrote much less frequently than he once had, for she never responded to his letters and over the months he had begun to give up any hope that she cared. Now, listening to her cold voice and seeing the way that she could scarcely stand to look at him, he realized that his fears were well-founded.

"I'm sorry," he said politely. "I have a room over the tavern: I won't need to stay in the house."

"You should. Staying at the tavern is just a waste of money."

He wished that her words sprung from a desire to see him again, or even from a wish not to be alone in the big, empty house, but from her tone it was obvious that the invitation was purely a practicality. Still, even if she didn't want his protection, such as it was, he needed to give it. He needed to watch over her, and staying at the house was the surest way to do it.

"I'll collect my things when we go to see the attorney," he told her. "We'd better do that right away."

Riza nodded mutely. She did not bother to glance in his direction, for she was staring hypnotically at the white sheet draped over the body of her father.

_discidium_

Riza's body was miles away from her mind. Any command sent by her brain – to move, to speak, even to breathe – had to pass through a thick layer of fog before it produced any action. Her father was dead. Her father was dead. Mr. Mustang had said so and the doctor had confirmed it. Her father was dead.

She knew that she should be sad. She ought to weep, and mourn, and show the proper sorrow. When people's fathers died, they were sad. But Riza... felt nothing.

Mr. Mustang was talking to the attorney, gesticulating occasionally and rubbing his bloodstained glove over his mouth. Riza sat not eight feet away from them, but she could not make herself focus on what they were saying. She knew that she should, for they were talking about the house and the taxes and her future, but she could not bear to focus on what they were saying.

Now that he was here, standing so near to him in his brave blue uniform, Riza wondered why she had ever wanted him to come back. He had changed so much. He bore little resemblance to the small, thin alchemy student who had vanished one day while she was running errands in the village. Still less did he remind her of her childhood playmate whose name she was forbidden from using. He was a grown man, tall and imposing and so serious. Part of her, the part who remembered Roy whom she had loved and with whom she had played, wanted to run to him and hug him tightly and tearfully beg him never, ever to leave her again. The other half of Riza Hawkeye, however, the half hardened by two years of loneliness and hard work and humiliation, knew that such behaviour was unacceptable. There was no use in pretending that she was a child. She had to be strong. She was all alone now, and she had to be strong.

"What would a boy your age want with a slip of a girl like that?" the attorney was saying.

"She needs a legal guardian, doesn't she?" Mr. Mustang asked. "Or they'll send her to the orphanage in East City."

That possibility had not occurred to Riza, and her head snapped up as she looked at Mr. Mustang. She was too old to go to an orphanage, surely! They wouldn't send her there! They couldn't!

"They might. Trouble is, you're only seventeen: you can't be responsible for another minor. It isn't done."

"She has a grandfather—"

"No!" Riza cried. She did not remember her grandfather, but she knew that she did not want to live with him. Now that her father was dead – her father was _dead_? – she had a chance to live for herself instead of serving an old man hand and foot. She had done her duty, and now he was dead. She did not want to take on some other charge. Her father had marked her, marred her, violated her... what would her unknown grandfather do to her? She was finally free of the devil she knew: she was not ready to take on the one she did not. "I don't want to live with him!"

Mr. Mustang turned to her. "But Riza, you remember your grandfather," he said. "He's a good man. He sponsored my—"

"I don't want to," she repeated firmly, forcing herself to calm down. She had to sound capable and grown up: if they took her for a child, they would treat her as one. "I can take quite good care of myself. And please call me Miss Hawkeye," she added primly, smoothing her skirt.

Mr. Mustang looked as if she had slapped him. He squared his shoulders resolutely, and turned back to the attorney.

"Her father asked me to take care of her," he said. "He was my sensei, my mentor. I have to respect his last wish."

The man hissed sympathetically. "That you do, lad," he said; "but the law doesn't have to. There's no way that the state will let a seventeen-year-old have custody of a kid."

"I'll be eighteen in less than a year!" Mr. Mustang protested. "Isn't there _any _way?"

"Sorry. No. Unless you found a lawyer willing to perjure himself and post-date a custody certificate, there's nothing that can be done."

Riza closed her eyes and tried not to give in to the shudder of terror that coursed through her. She didn't want to go to the orphanage. She could take care of herself. She knew how to cook a little, and she had a good education. She had almost graduated from school: if only her father hadn't pulled her out, she would have got her diploma. She could find work and support herself. They couldn't lock her up in an orphanage.

"Can you turn a blind eye to it?" Mr. Mustang asked. "I know that that's done. Hawkeye-sensei had me in his house all those years without paperwork. Surely as long as Ri — Miss Hawkeye is provided for it doesn't matter if she has a legal guardian."

"There's that," the man allowed. "It's certainly common enough. I don't want to see the lass in a state orphanage any more than you do. But there's the problem of the house..."

"The doctor mentioned that," Mr. Mustang said. "Something about taxes?"

"Your sensei was a deadbeat," said the attorney. "He deferred his taxes three years ago, and didn't even acknowledge them last winter or this. Since he's dead, the township will be arraigning his estate. Either the girl comes up with the money, or the property will be claimed in lieu of payment."

"I'll pay," Mr. Mustang told him instantly. "How much?"

"Ten thousand _sens_," the lawyer said. "Plus five thousand in delinquency fines."

The colour drained from the young soldier's face. "I—I have twelve thousand," he said. "Could... is there any way..."

"You could find a usurer to borrow from," the attorney said. "Personally, I'd let the place go. It's little more than a ruin as it is."

Mr. Mustang shook his head. "I'll find the money," he pledged, sounding oddly desperate. "I'm not going to let Riza lose her house."

They couldn't settle this on their own, either: it wasn't fair. Riza got to her feet.

"That isn't necessary, thank you," she said. "If there is no money to pay the taxes, then the town must have the house."

He turned to her. "But Riza—"

"Miss Hawkeye," she corrected him softly. It was easier if he didn't use her given name. If he called her "Riza" once more, she was afraid that she might burst into tears. "I don't want to stay here. If I stay here, someone might report me, and they they'll send me to the orphanage."

Mr. Mustang grimaced miserably. "You're right," he breathed, but there was a horrible, haunted look in his eyes. "You're right, you can't stay here."

"So the house goes?" the attorney said.

"At once?" asked Riza.

The man shook his head. "I could delay for a week," he said, almost kindly. "Give you kids a chance to pack up what you want, and move on. How's that sound?"

The cadet looked at Riza, anguish in his dark eyes. "That's... it's fine," he said. "Thank you."

"Least I could do," the attorney said. He sighed and chafed his brow with one hand. "What about the burial? Will you be needing my services?"

Riza didn't know the answer to this. She couldn't remember anything of the preparations for her mother's funeral. A thrill of panic gripped her. She couldn't cope with this right now. Her whole life had been thrown into turmoil, and as hard as she tried to behave like a grown-up lady, she was not yet thirteen.

Mr. Mustang seemed to sense her distress, for he stepped ever so slightly in front of her. "Yes, thank you," he said. "The undertaker informs me that he can prepare everything for Wednesday afternoon at two o'clock. I understand there's a fee?"

"The family owns the burial plot," the attorney said. "Just about the last thing the Hawkeyes _do _own outright. The permit from the city is eleven hundred _sens_. I'll waive my charge for the service. Consider it a gesture of condolence for your loss."

"Thank you, that's very kind," Mr. Mustang said with only the slightest reluctance. He picked up his kit bag, and drew out a coffee can. From it he took several bank notes, and handed them to the attorney. "Eleven hundred _sens_," he said softly.

"Fine. If you'll just sign here, lass." The attorney held his pen out to Riza, tapping a line on the permit. Riza signed her name in her neat, precise hand. Then she stepped backward, unconsciously taking up a position just behind Mr. Mustang.

Two minutes later, the pair of them were walking silently through the town. Mr. Mustang led the way, and Riza followed him numbly. When they reached the dry goods store, the young soldier stopped.

"Do you have a black dress?" he asked.

"Sir?" Riza said, surprised by the question.

"A dress. A black dress. For the funeral. Do you have one?"

He looked profoundly uncomfortable, as if he were speaking to a stranger. Once again, Riza felt an urge to embrace him and to force everything to be as it once had been, but she couldn't. The formality that had been imposed upon them when she was ten years old was more than habit by now. It had solidified into a kind of truth that nothing could shake, and her longing for the familiarity that they once had had seemed like a ghostly fantasy.

"I have a black skirt," she said. "I can wear that."

"Good," Mr. Mustang murmured. "That's good. Riza..."

"Miss Hawkeye."

He blinked slowly, but said nothing more. Presently, she looked up at him.

"What is it, Mr. Mustang?" she asked.

He swallowed so that his Adam's apple bobbed. "N-nothing," he said softly. "Nothing at all."

Then he started walking again, his handsome black boots bearing him quickly away towards the edge of town. Riza watched his back for a moment, and then followed as quickly as her cheap shoes would allow. It was strange, she thought. They had grown up together, and now they were little better than strangers. Why he hate her? What had she done this time?


	79. The Wheel is Come Full Circle

**Chapter 79: The Wheel is Come Full Circle**

That evening they returned to the dark, empty house and sat down to a meagre meal of stale bread and water. Riza swept the kitchen, checked both doors to ensure they were locked, and then went to bed as the sun was setting. Roy sat alone in the kitchen as the twilight faded into blackness, staring at his ruined gloves and reinforcing the bastion around his emotions. He had to be strong, for his own sake as well as Riza's. He could not afford the weakness of sorrow now.

The following morning, he rose with the sun. Accustomed as he was to the rigid schedule of the Academy, where the cadets were expected to rise to the oh-five-hundred reveille, this was no great hardship. He dressed in his duty fatigues, taking care that every button was fastened properly, and the epaulettes were squared to the collar. He peered into Riza's room, and as he had hoped she was sleeping, curled on her side with her face buried in the pillow. Watching her lying so peacefully made Roy's heart ache. He longed to tuck the coverlet around her, or stroke her hair, or make some sign of the affection – the love – that he felt for her, but he could not. She had constantly rebuffed him yesterday: to make any such gesture while she slept would be little better than assault.

He descended to the kitchen, over-stepping the faulty stair. He made a quick survey of the cupboards. As he had feared, the bread and water had indeed been all that Riza had to offer. There was nothing else to be had, save for a few half-empty jars of herbs and spices, and a deflated sack with a handful of oats in it. Roy moved quietly upstairs, and took four two hundred _sens_ notes from his carefully hoarded stash, and headed into the village.

At this time of the day, the shops were still closed. Roy, however, had not forgotten early lessons, and made straight for the bakery. There he obtained an almost fresh loaf of bread, half a dozen of yesterday's sticky buns, and (with some smooth talking and judicial use of his uniform) four eggs. When Riza descended to the kitchen at a quarter to eight, she found a fairly respectable breakfast waiting for her. Roy made a few abortive attempts at conversation, trying not to notice the swift, ravenous mouthfuls she took.

"We need to pack up," he said at last, broaching a painful subject. "I... I'll go to the lumber yard and see if they have crates for sale. I don't know what you'd like to take, but—"

"Nothing," Riza said. "Just my clothes and — and maybe a couple of books. The rest... I don't care about the rest."

The mention of books conjured up the image of his sensei's study, overflowing with alchemical texts. Many were banal and elementary, and Roy had memorized them long ago. Some, however, were rare and valuable texts whose secrets he had scarcely begun to mine. Besides that, there had to be research notes detailing Hawkeye-sensei's flame alchemy. No... the contents of the study, at least, had to be sifted through.

"Miss Hawkeye, your father's books..." Roy said hesitantly.

"You can have them if you like," she told him quietly. "I don't understand alchemy: they're useless to me."

Roy smiled a little, sadly. "Riza, I know that sometimes it must have seemed like your father didn't—"

She got to her feet so abruptly that the chair almost toppled backwards. "I don't wish to speak of it, thank you," she said primly, gathering the dishes. "If you need crates to pack anything, I believe you should try the tavern. They might have some that they would be willing to let go for nothing, instead of buying them at the lumber yard."

"Thank you..." Roy said, but his heart sank. She wasn't interested in speaking to him except with the most rigid formality. He enjoyed greater familiarity with the drill instructors at the National Academy than he was allowed with the girl he had grown up beside.

_discidium_

All that day, Roy sorted through the books in the study, carefully culling out only the best. First, of course, he had to clean up the blood; an unpleasant task, but necessary. The journal onto which Hawkeye-sensei had fallen was ruined, but it contained nothing but a regurgitation of Paracelcus, virtually verbatim as if the writer had had no original ideas left, but had been so acclimatized to the habit of writing that he could do nothing else. That one, and the six volumes that preceded it, Roy set aside to be burned – but not before scouring them thoroughly for some sign of a cipher.

Among the scrolls he found several ancient manuscripts dealing with dangerous and forbidden disciplines of alchemy. These Roy could neither destroy nor turn over to the State, so they were packed away, along with several volumes on horticultural alchemy, and a number of old texts in a language he did not recognize and thus could not decipher. As the afternoon dragged on, however, it became obvious that there was nothing in any of these books that pertained to his sensei's own particular art. In the end, Roy had three crates of volumes that were destined to be the foundation of his own library – volumes that any alchemist would envy. Last of all, he took the book that had served as his primer of the art, and added it to the collection of advanced works. It was a nostalgic gesture, for the book was a familiar weight in his hand... though oddly enough, it seemed bulkier than he remembered.

They ate more heartily that night, and retired early, for tomorrow was the funeral.

_discidium_

The service was simple and brief. Mr. Mustang was obliged to serve as a pallbearer, for the two undertakers and their new apprentice had intended to charge for the presence of a fourth. The attorney said the usual words, proclaiming the burial valid and legal, and then the plain pine coffin was lowered into the earth. There were no flowers, for at this time of the year they had to be ordered from the hothouses in East City. Riza secretly longed for even a single blossom to lay upon the coffin. As Mr. Mustang had spent such a great deal of money already, however, she had felt it only right to refuse his offer to send for some.

Where the money had come from she did not know. He must indeed have made his fortune since going away, for the funeral cost a great deal of money. In addition to the burial permit, there was the cost of the coffin – two thousand _sens_, and it was only cheap pine with glued wooden handles and iron nails. Though the attorney had waived his fee, the undertakers needed theirs, which was three thousand _sens_. Most costly of all was the tombstone, which Mr. Mustang had insisted was a necessity. The local stonemason was finishing it, and it would be laid upon the grave that evening. It had cost the unbelievable sum of fifty-five hundred _sens_. Riza knew this not because he had told her, but because she had found the work order when she had gone in to make his bed that morning, only to discover to her astonishment that he had already done it. By her reckoning, he had spent almost twelve thousand _sens_. The thought of so much money made her head swim.

When the service was over, Mr. Mustang led Riza swiftly away from the graveside, before the first clods of earth could fall upon the coffin. Riza had a dim memory of her mother's funeral, and how terrible that sound was, and she was glad of the strong arm herding her away. He murmured something consoling that she could not quite hear, for the tears were prickling in her eyes and her blood rang cacophonously in her ears. She quickened her pace as they moved down the hill and back towards the empty house. Once inside, she murmured some inane excuse to Mr. Mustang, and then hurried up the stairs to her bedroom.

Riza knew that she was a big girl, and beyond such childish stupidity, but she could not help herself. She stepped out of her shoes, crept into her closet and drew the door closed. Then, as she had done many times in the dark days after Doctor Bella's death, she curled forward upon herself and wept into her skirt, pouring out her pain as a silent libation.

Her father was dead. Her father was dead, and it was almost a relief. He had used her contemptibly, mutilated her for the sake of his research, and never favoured her with any sign of affection in return. Though she tried she had never been able to please him or to correct the unforgivable defect that gave rise to his hatred of her. He had never been kind, and had often been cruel. No matter how inadequate she was, Riza knew she did not deserve such treatment, and now he was gone. She was free of him. And yet...

And yet he was still her father, and she loved him, and she did not want him to be dead. She wished – oh, how she wished! – that he was not dead. It pained her more than she would have thought possible. It wrung at her heart and only in weeping could she find any surcease from the anguish she had been bearing so silently for days.

When at last the cathartic tears had passed, Riza emerged from the closet. She smoothed her skirt and moved into the bathroom, where she washed her face and brushed her short hair. Then she descended to the kitchen, where she belonged.

There was an invader in her sanctuary. Mr. Mustang sat at the table, once more dressed in his ordinary uniform instead of the full dress – save for the gloves, which could not be salvaged – that he had worn to the funeral. In his hand was a yellow paper, and his face was ghastly pale.

"What is it?" Riza asked softly, taking a tiny step forward before she realized that it was inappropriate for her to ask such questions of one who was practically a stranger.

He looked up, and his coal-coloured eyes were wide with pain. "It's... do you remember Maes Hughes?" he asked.

Ben's little brother. Of course she remembered him. Riza nodded.

"His brother's dead," the man mumbled.

Riza's hand flew to her mouth, and she fought the urge to scream. Dead? Not Ben! She could not bear to lose Benjamin as well, not now when he was all she had left in the world!

"Ira," Mr. Mustang said, almost to himself. "I didn't know him very well, but Maes... this is going to kill Maes."

"Ira?" Riza dared to breathe. "Ira's dead? Not..."

Mr. Mustang's head moved from side to side. "No, not Ben," he said, and Riza wondered how he had managed to read her mind with such alacrity. He stared down at the paper. "_Roy, stop_," he read. "_Ira dead, stop. Wound gangrenous, stop. Intolerable, stop._"

He raised his head again. "He was a soldier," he mumbled, more to himself than to Riza. "He was wounded in battle, and... and..." He shivered convulsively and seemed to struggle to collect himself. "We should go," he said, picking up a bundle wrapped in brown paper. "The headstone should be set by now, and I'd quite like to see it."

Riza swallowed hard. She wasn't sure that she could bear to return to the cemetery. They had only just left! Then she looked out the window at the dark grey sky, and realized that it must have been four or five hours since they had returned from the funeral. How long had she been weeping.

"These are for you," Mr. Mustang said, holding out the bundle. "Well, not for _you_, but... for him. For sensei."

Riza unwrapped the heavy paper, and gasped. A large bouquet of violets and daisies lay nestled in a cone of tissue.

"But... so much money," she said.

He waved her off. "I'm only sorry they didn't come in time for the funeral. Shall we... shall we go?"

_discidium_

He had chosen the epitaph himself, with the disapproval of the undertaker. Roy waited, breathless, as Riza read the inscription.

_Mordred Hawkeye_, the stone read, followed by his date of birth and of death. Then... _"The wonder is he hath endur'd so long: he but usurp'd his life_".

Riza closed her eyes, clutching the bouquet of costly flowers to her bosom. Then she bent down and laid them carefully on top of the granite slab settling into the freshly-turned soil at the tombstone's foot. She straightened and backed away, standing parallel to Roy, but carefully – or accidentally – too far away for him to touch her.

"It's perfect," she breathed softly. Roy felt a weight lifting from his chest. He had thought so, and he was glad to have that opinion confirmed by the only other person yet living who had truly known the tormented man buried here.

There was a silence. "I'm sorry, Mr. Mustang," Riza said at last. "For having to rely upon you for the arrangements for the funeral."

"It was nothing," Roy said, and truthfully. In a few days, he knew, he would lament the loss of his carefully horded money. In a few days, he would have to face the fact that two years' savings was gone, and he had to start all over again if he hoped to take the State Alchemist's exam... but then it occurred to him. Without the secrets of flame alchemy, he had no hope of passing anyhow. What would it profit him to try? No. The money was better spent here, ensuring not only that his teacher had a proper burial, but that Riza could try to rebuild her life without the guilt of burying a parent in a pauper's grave.

"He was my mentor," he said, inadequately. "As his student, I would have done anything for him."

Riza said nothing. She didn't look at him: she was staring at the headstone. She looked so grown up in her sombre black garments. Roy had to forcibly remind himself that she was not quite thirteen. He wished she had consented to staying with Brigadier General Grumman. He couldn't understand why she did not want to: it was absolutely baffling.

"What about the rest of your family?" he asked tentatively, feeling the waters and wondering if now was the time to try to convince her to rethink her position.

Riza shook her head. "My mother..." she said, her eyes straying to the weather-beaten stone next to Hawkeye-sensei's. "She died so long ago. My father never spoke about family: I think he was estranged from my relations. He never told me about them."

She had to remember! She _had_ to remember her merry, loving grandfather... but it was obvious that she did not. Roy felt ill. His mouth worked without the full consent of his mind.

"What will you do now?"

The moment the words were out, Roy wished he could retract them. He remembered his own confusion and desolation two years past, when he had been turned out of the house with neither guidance nor direction. He recalled the strain and the terror and the self-doubt. He could only imagine how much worse it must be for Riza. She was only thirteen, her father was dead, she was about to lose her home, and he was asking her to share her _plans_? It was his responsibility to care for her, not to torment her with impossible questions!

"I haven't decided yet," Riza said, and Roy realized with dawning horror that she had taken him entirely too seriously. "At least my father let me have a good education. I think I can find some way to live on my own."

Roy wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her that the world was harsh and cruel, and that it was much harder to survive than she might think. Instead, to his horror, he heard his lips say, "All right."

Before he knew what was happening, he had one of his cards out from the pocket of his coat. "If you ever need anything, you can contact me through military H.Q. I'll most likely be in the military for the rest of my life."

Riza's eyes were wide, and he wondered if his strangely calloused reply to her tacit admission of bewilderment had startled her. But she took the card and peered at it. "For the rest of your life?" she breathed.

"Uh-huh," Roy mumbled, flushing a little.

"Please don't die," she whispered.

Roy felt a cold sweat break out on his brow. Somewhere behind him, a raven let out an ominous _kaw! _that echoed through the crisp November air like a harbinger of destiny.

"Don't jinx me," Roy implored. "I can't promise that. In this profession you never know when you might wind up dead in a ditch somewhere, like a piece of trash."

He thought of Ira Hughes, who had gone into battle whole and returned with a passage carved straight through his chest – Ira Hughes, who would never fight again, or tease his little brother again, or see another sunrise or...

Roy shivered. It was a calculated risk, he thought. He had known when he enrolled that being a soldier meant taking that chance. It was worth it. The military men suffer and die so that the common people can be happy and live.

"But still," he said, a smile touching his lips as his vision of the future returned to bolster his flagging courage; "if I could become one of this nation's foundation stones and protect its people with my hands, that would make me happy. That's the reason I wanted to become a State Alchemist, but in the end Hawkeye-sensei didn't teach me his secrets... sorry. I must be _boring_ you with my naive dreams..."

He rubbed his neck self-consciously. For a moment, he had forgotten how estranged he was from her. He had forgotten that she was no longer his playmate and confidant, and that though he loved her she wanted nothing to do with him.

"Not at all," Riza said softly. "I think it's a _wonderful_ dream."

She was looking at the tombstone again, but this time there was a strange gleam in her carmine eyes. It took Roy a moment to recognize it, for he had not seen it in her eyes for years, even prior to his unceremonious dismissal from the house.

"My father didn't take his secrets to the grave," she said at last. "He told me that he hid them in a code that no average alchemist could decipher."

Roy stared at her, one eyebrow raised. He had searched the study: there was nothing! But then he remembered what Hawkeye-sensei had said moments before he died. _The notes... are held by my daughter. _

_By my daughter_.

Riza had them. She must have hidden them somewhere else in the house: somewhere that no one would think to look.

"So sensei left behind his secret manuscripts after all?" he asked, his eagerness leeching through into his voice despite his efforts at stoicism.

"No."

Riza's entire aspect changed. She was suddenly tense. Her shoulders hunched up, and her expression grew blank and closed.

"It's not a manuscript," she murmured darkly. "He said he couldn't take the risk of having his life's work destroyed, or have it fall into the wrong hands."

Roy frowned. "But then how did he leave his legacy behind?"

She didn't seem to hear him. "Mr. Mustang?" she said. "That dream... can I entrust my back to you so that I can help you fulfil it? Can I truly believe in a future where everyone can live in happiness?"

Roy swallowed hard. "I think so," he said. "I think that if no one believes in it, it can never happen."

Riza's head bobbed slowly up and down. "Then I... I think you're the one. I promised my father that I would not allow his research to fall into the wrong hands. He wanted to ensure that it would be used for good, not for evil."

"He told me the same thing," Roy confessed. "He said that he could not teach me his secrets until I proved I was ready. I never got that chance."

"Do _you _think you're ready?" she asked.

Roy nodded. "I've tried to be."

A tiny smile touched her lips. It was the most beautiful thing Roy had ever seen, for he had feared that he would never again see Riza's smile. "Th-then I'll try to be ready, too," she said.

_discidium_

They walked back to the house in silence, but the quiet was no longer hostile. Though they could not be friends, they had a shared goal. A shared dream.

And what a beautiful dream, Riza thought as she opened the front door and followed Mr. Mustang inside. Using her father's work for the good of all, to strengthen the very foundations of Amestris and to protect the innocent – what could be a more noble undertaking? She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was how it was meant to be. This was what she was meant to do with the secrets entrusted to her.

It was an immense relief to know that the matter was settled. She would pass the knowledge on to Mr. Mustang, who as her father's apprentice had a certain right to it anyhow. Then he could decide what to do with it, and she could stop worrying. Riza could not remember how many nights since the tattooing she had spent tossing and turning, fretting over how she would know the worthy recipient of this unique and potentially dangerous knowledge; worrying about what would happen if she chose poorly. Now, she would be able to rest peacefully again.

It was not until she stood at the foot of the stairs and saw Mr. Mustang watching her anxiously that she realized the full implications of what she had committed to.

"Where are they hidden?" the young soldier asked, an eager light burning in his eyes. It might have been the gleam of youthful enthusiasm, but to Riza it was a reminder of her father's expression when he worked on her research: a look of intense, manic zeal that gave the wearer the look of a man possessed. Riza shivered involuntarily.

"I... we... we have to go upstairs," she stammered, shrinking in on herself and hugging her abdomen as a wave of anticipatory shame tore through her.

Mr. Mustang didn't seem to notice. He nodded and gestured gallantly that she should go first. Riza was so flustered that she forgot the bad step, and when it sounded off she almost fell backwards down the stairs – but a strong arm was there to catch her. She mumbled her incoherent thanks and hurried up to her bedroom. She glanced over her shoulder, flushing furiously. Mr. Mustang followed her.

"You said it wasn't a manuscript," he said. "A drawing? Sensei was always making those strange sketches."

"It's... it's sort of a drawing," Riza said. She started to undo the buttons on her jacket, but by the time she reached the third one her fingers were trembling so badly that she could not continue.

"Riza?" Mr. Mustang said softly. Gently. "What's wrong?"

She drew in a sharp, shuddering breath. "It's not on paper," she blurted out, covering her face with her hands. She didn't want to! She didn't want to expose her body to a man again! It wasn't worth it, it wasn't worth it.

"What do you mean?" he breathed. "Riza, what's wrong? Where is it?"

She couldn't say it. She couldn't admit what had happened. Riza could not find the words to express what had been done to her. As quickly as she could, she removed her jacket, dropping it to the floor as her wrist lost its strength. When she began to unbutton the patched white blouse, Mr. Mustang let out a small yelp of alarm.

"Riza, what are you doing?" he cried. Then she could hear his breath catching in his throat as the garment fell away. She curled her bare arms over her small, naked breasts and closed her eyes against the flood of mortification that threatened to swallow her.

_discidium_

He had not left manuscripts. He had not used paper. He had used _her_.

Roy stared numbly at the slender back before him, the white skin marred by stark lines of black. It looked almost as if someone had soaked a brush in black ink and painted an elaborate sigil across a milky canvas... but Roy knew the truth. It was a tattoo, an indelible mark that neither time nor nature could ever erase. He knew what he was seeing, but somehow he could not process it. A tattoo. On Riza's back. Over _all_ of Riza's back.

He had loved his sensei. He had respected him and trusted him and strove to live up to his ideals. As he gawked at his teacher's masterwork, Roy felt all of that love, that respect, and that trust ebbing bitterly away.

She was his _daughter_. True, Hawkeye had never shown much interest in her, never given her the affection she needed or the attention she deserved. He had never taken any steps to be considerate of her or to put her before all else as he should have done. But despite all that, Roy had never thought that his master could sink to _this_.

"Did you... did he... did you consent to this?" he choked out, horror coating his throat so that the words were hoarse and strained.

Riza nodded once, almost imperceptibly. He could not see her face, but the tension across her shoulder blades stood out under the curves and the gothic lettering. She had her arms clutched to her bosom, hiding herself as best she could. Roy didn't know what to do. The design was obviously some sort of code: the central feature was a simple transmutation circle, and the rest must include instructions for its use... but it was not laid out in a book, as it should have been. _It was on a human back. Riza's back_.

A tremor ripped through the young girl's body. "H-he said it was a cipher," she said. "A p-perfect cipher."

Suddenly, Roy felt his limbs come to life again. He wrenched off his uniform jacket, shaking out the blue wool. He came forward and drew it around in front of Riza, offering some little cover for her denuded torso. With a tiny noise of gratitude or horror, she clutched it over her breasts. Roy drew back a pace, staring dumbfounded at the abomination spreading across her back.

There was a transmutation circle with a salamander, supported by two monarch serpents. Geometrical symbols surmounted the circle, and all was surrounded by lines of Latin verse. Roy had the curious feeling that he had seen it somewhere before... but he could not place it. He looked at the very first words, at the top of the image just... just below Riza's collarbone.

Suddenly, he felt ill. His stomach roiled, and his palms grew clammy. "Exc-excuse me," he stuttered. He ran from the room and across to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He threw himself to his knees just in time, before horror and revulsion and disbelief overpowered him, and he vomited copiously into the toilet.

When the bitter heaving was over, he rocked back onto his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He closed his eyes, but it was no use. The image was seared into his eyelids: Riza, half-naked and quaking with fear and shame. Her back, blighted by the hand of her father. And the first words he had seen within the horrific tattoo: _confutatis maledictis flammis acribus addictis, voca sua cum benedictus._

_When the wicked are confounded and consigned to flames of woe, call her among the blessed._


	80. What You Leave Behind

**Chapter 80: What You Leave Behind**

"Don't you want to study it?" Riza asked quietly.

Roy was sitting at the table, staring at the cold stove. At the sound of her voice, he looked up. "What? Oh. The... your... that..."

The words were sticking in his throat. Her expression was puzzled, anxious and maybe even just a little hurt. His stomach twisted again. She had bared her body to him, with valour that no one her age should have to display, and how had he reacted? He had run away. He hadn't even had the courage to face up to what his sensei – a man he had idolized and loved as a father – had done to his only living child.

He turned away now, too, fixing his eyes upon the stove once more. "I'm not ready," he mumbled, shame creeping from his innards.

Riza took a tiny step towards him. "Mr. Mustang? You said you wanted to use your alchemy for the good of the people. W-won't my father's secrets help you to do that?"

"They'd probably allow me to become a State Alchemist," Roy concurred flatly. "But I can't..." He shook his head, helpless. "I can't."

"I understand," Riza murmured. He heard a rustle of cheap cotton as she shrunk further in upon herself. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Roy breathed, looking up in consternation. "Riza, it's not your fault. He... he never should have done that to you."

Her wide carmine eyes shone suddenly with tears, and her lower lip quivered. She bit it resolutely, and then turned away. Though it was surely not her intention, the dark ink of the tattoo showed through the thin white fabric of her blouse, which was stretched taut over her back by her stance. Roy's body shuddered with violent disillusion.

"It h-had to be kept safe," Riza whispered, as if repeating by rote a lesson that had served her through a brutal trial. "It's powerful. It's dangerous. I had to keep it safe for him."

"Is that what he told you?" Roy asked, dreading the answer.

"It's true," Riza said. "It has to be passed on to a good person. I..." She hesitated, and then said, so softly that it was almost inaudible, "I think _you're_ a good person, Mr. Mustang."

This quiet affirmation shattered the last of Roy's composure. He buried his head in his hands, resorting to a physical mask as his emotional one crumbled. He screwed his eyes tightly closed against the tears as the strain and sorrow of the last few days thundered in his ears. Strain and sorrow... and guilt. Because he had failed to protect her. He had failed to keep her safe. He never should have left her alone in this house. By his compliance with his sensei's demands, he had abandoned her to Hawkeye's perverse devices. Now she was mutilated, branded forever with the mark of her father's depravity and her erstwhile playmate's cowardice. He was an accomplice in this horrible misdeed, and to study the markings now would be to condone what had been done to her. It would cement his complicity in this crime against her person and her dignity.

A gentle hand brushed against his sleeve, hesitant, and then gripped his arm. "Don't..." Riza implored. "It didn't hurt me, not very much."

As if the pain of tattooing were the greatest concern here. Roy shook his head mutely, keeping his face well hidden. A long silence elapsed. At last, Riza released her hold on his arm.

"What about your dream?" she asked. "You wanted to do good, to change the country and protect the people. Are you going to give up on that because... just because the information you need is on m-my back?"

Roy raised his head sharply, forgetting the tear snaking down his cheek. "_Why_ didn't he just write the damned thing down?" he exclaimed.

Riza took a step back, startled by the violence of his tone. The sudden fear in her eyes frightened and chastised Roy. He knew it was not a reaction to his words, but to his tone. He had shouted at her as Hawkeye-sensei had been wont to do. He raised a hand to his mouth. "Riza... I'm sorry..."

She closed her eyes and nodded. "Y-you can't give up," she said softly. "It isn't right."

Riza bowed her head, and a tremor tore through her slender body. Then she looked up, fixing him with her extraordinary eyes. "Please, Mr. Mustang. You _can't _give up."

It was at that moment that it occurred to Roy that perhaps his lofty ambitions were more than naive dreams. They were a way to give meaning to the misery and privation that he had known as a small child, and to the stresses and indignities of the last two years. What were these aspirations but a bold and perhaps a little arrogant desire to ensure that others did not have to suffer what he had? And if achieving that would imbue his tribulations with some purpose... might the same not be said for Riza? He could not imagine the pain she had suffered (and at the hand of her _father, _no less) during the application of that tattoo. Perhaps, if the information entrusted to her were to be used for good, it would ease the bitterness of the memories.

"You're right," he said softly. "I can't."

Riza's lips curled into a tiny smile and she nodded in firm accord.

_discidium_

Mr. Mustang's days of furlough were drawing to a close, and as the journey back to Central would take at least two days, he had to depart the following morning. That evening when their frugal supper was finished and the dishes cleaned and put away, Riza poured two mugs of the tea that the soldier had bought, and sat down across from him.

"It's decided, then?" she said softly. "You're going to try to decipher the... the code?"

He sighed softly. "I can't," he said. "I have to be back in Central for Monday."

"I could go with you," Riza suggested breathlessly. The notion had occurred to her that afternoon, and she had been looking for an opportunity to broach it since. "It would be easier to find work in a big city. I could stay in Central for a while, and you could... could study it when you had time."

Mr. Mustang grunted noncommittally, then stiffened a little. "You'd do that?" he asked. "You'd come to Central for me?"

Riza bit her lip. She had realized in the graveyard that she could trust him. Oddly enough, the moment that had cemented that certainty was when he handed her his card and gave her leave to go her own way. That act had deviated so far from anything her father had ever done: where he had sought to control her and possess her and use her, Mr. Mustang was willing to let her go. He was willing to give her her freedom, and to give her control of her own life. This was a wondrous discovery, and soothed Riza's battered heart: she could still trust him after all.

He cared for her and respected her enough to let her go, but the truth was that Riza did not want to. Yes, she wanted to leave this hated house, and the village where she excited nothing but scorn and gossip, and all the unhappy memories of the last desolate years, but she was not ready to strike out on her own. Surely she could find work, for she was a clever and well-educated person; and with work came money for food and for lodgings... but she was afraid to be wholly alone. Living in the same city as Mr. Mustang would make her feel safer. Continuing to consort with him would help her cling to her fragile sense of self.

"If you wanted me to," she whispered, waiting breathlessly. The... the _thing _that he had to study (for to think of it as a tattoo was nothing but a cruel reminder of her hideous and mutilated body) was the perfect excuse for her to follow him as she longed to. At least for a little while, they could be together.

"I-I'd love that, Riza," he pledged. "I can't have you on campus, but we could find you a room – a nice room – in the city. I... we'd find some way to make enough money for food and lodgings. And—"

There was a knock at the back door.

Riza looked at Mr. Mustang, and he looked at her. The question was plain: who on _earth_ would be calling on them?

"Shall I..." Mr. Mustang gestured vaguely.

Riza shook her head. "N-no, it's... it's my house, for a little while, anyway." Nervously, she crossed the kitchen and entered the lean-to. Drawing in a bracing breath, she unlatched and opened the door.

A tall, kind-eyed man in a brown suit stood there, a folder of russet card under his arm. It took Riza a moment to realize that it was under his _only _arm.

"Mr. Regnier?" she said softly, her voice quavering with wonder.

Her former teacher smiled a little, sadly. "Hello, Riza. How are you?"

There was genuine concern in his voice. Riza forced a small smile. "I'm well, thank you," she replied.

A silence lapsed. "May I come in?" Mr. Regnier said at last.

"Oh!" Riza straightened a little, startled by the suggestion and fearful lest he should take her for a poor hostess. "Please, do. Would you like some tea?"

"That would be lovely, thank you," Mr. Regnier told her, following her through to the kitchen. He stopped short at the sight of Mr. Mustang, sitting in his splendid blue uniform. "Well, now. What have we here?"

The cadet's eyes widened and he sprung to his feet, snapping into a crisp salute. "Sir!"

Mr. Regnier chuckled softly. "At ease, mister. I'm not a captain anymore."

"No, sir," said Mr. Mustang, lowering his hand a little sheepishly. "I... it's good to see you, sir."

"And you. Riza..." Mr. Regnier turned towards her, his face gentle with empathy. "I was so sorry to hear of your bereavement, my dear. How very brave you are: I'm so proud of you." He took a step towards her, as if to initiate an embrace.

Riza shied away, intimidated by the sight of a man she had not seen in years. Seeing her hesitation, Mr. Regnier stopped dead.

"I thought to bring you flowers," he said; "for I understand that is the traditional token of condolence. However, I have something that may prove more useful in the long run." He smiled a little, holding out the folder to her.

Riza took it, and opened it carefully. Inside, there was a piece of heavy parchment bearing her name and...

She looked up at Mr. Regnier with wonder. "It's... is it..."

"I realize it's highly irregular, when you didn't sit your final exams," Mr. Regnier said; "but you are the best student I've had, and you worked so hard. It'd be a pity if you didn't graduate just because your father... just because you had to leave school so unexpectedly. It's a real diploma," he added; "registered with the State and everything. I've had it for months, I confess, but I didn't have the courage to bring it 'round. I hope you'll forgive me?"

"I..." Riza didn't know what to say. She stared at her name, splendidly set in a handsome cursive typeface. It was strangely empowering, this piece of paper. It stated unequivocally that she was clever enough, as clever as a sixteen-year-old girl. It proved that she had a good education, and that she was equal to any task that a graduate was. It meant that she would be able to find work, and good work, too. It meant that she could survive.

"I... heard about the house, too," Mr. Regnier murmured gently. "Where will you go?"

"To Central," Riza said. She was momentarily surprised at the deep timbre of her voice, until she realized that Mr. Mustang had spoken, too. A consoling warmth suffused her breast. He wanted her to come with him: he truly did.

"You're in the National Academy, then," Mr. Regnier said to the cadet, who nodded modestly. "Well done, my boy. Have you family there, Riza?"

Riza was about to say that she did not, but Mr. Mustang spoke first. "Her mother's father, sir," he said. "He's a brigadier general. I'll see she gets there safely."

"But I—" Riza started to protest, but then she caught Mr. Mustang's eye and realized his intention. He wasn't going to force her to live with her grandfather: he was merely trying to placate the adult. If Mr. Regnier knew that she intended to live on her own, he would feel bound to interfere. He might even turn Riza over to the authorities. "Yes," she said, echoing Mr. Mustang. "He's a brigadier general."

"I'm glad," her teacher said. "I hope he'll take good care of you: you deserve it."

Riza's throat constricted a little. This was goodbye, she realized. She had never had a chance to say a proper goodbye to Mr. Regnier. "Th-thank you for everything," she said softly.

"Don't thank me," he said. "The pupil's brilliance is no credit to the teacher: you did your own work, and you have your own sharp mind. Be proud of it."

"Well... thank you for the diploma, then," Riza said. "I need it."

Mr. Regnier nodded as if he understood. "You earned it. And Riza!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a creased envelope. "I haven't given up hope of you attending university, and I hope you haven't, either. Here's a little something to help you. It isn't much, but it's the most I could wrangle from the school budget."

Riza opened the envelope and shook her head. "I can't accept it," she said. "You're very kind, but I don't need charity."

"It isn't charity; it's a scholarship," Mr. Regnier said. "It's only a thousand _sens_, but it's a start. Do you know what a scholarship is, Riza?"

She shook her head shamefacedly. Mr. Mustang was smiling. "It's money to pay for your education," he said. "It's like a prize."

"A prize..." she echoed softly, fingering the bank notes. She couldn't help feeling a tiny twinge of conceit. She had won a prize, for she was a clever girl. She could use it to pay for her studies, if she wanted to. She could go to university, maybe. She had her school diploma, and her father could no longer stop her. Maybe she would amount to something some day after all.

_discidium_

Roy had bought a round-trip ticket for himself before leaving Central. Raising the money for Riza's fare presented a difficulty. She offered to pay for it out of her thousand _sens_, but of course that was out of the question. She would have little enough to live on once they got to Central, and Roy was not about to squander her windfall on the train ticket.

In the end, he gathered a few articles from the house – a lamp, a couple of paintings, and two or three books that looked more impressive than they were, and took them to the village pawnbroker's. They raised only three hundred and eighty _sens_, but since Riza was under fourteen, and Roy only had to pay the military fare, it was enough. That afternoon, they boarded the overnight train to East City, where they would catch the express to Central. With the crates of alchemy texts in the baggage car, they settled as best they could in third class.

For a long while Riza sat quietly, reading from a book of history that she had brought with her. Around ten o'clock, she put it away, and put her hands in her lap.

"Everything will be all right," Roy said quietly. He wanted to add that he would take care of her, but the words seemed to stick in his throat.

"If it isn't, I'll still manage," she murmured.

She was so brave, so strong, so stoic... and not yet thirteen. Roy's heart ached. She should never have had to grow up so quickly. "If you want to lie down, I'll watch over you," he offered shyly.

"Thank you, but I'm not ti—" She was interrupted by an enormous yawn. "I suppose I'm a _little_ tired," she admitted with chagrin.

Roy took off his coat and his jacket. He folded the latter, and set it on the bench opposite, close by the wall. The latter he handed to her. "In place of a blanket," he said.

She nodded a little, holding the heavy woollen garment. "Mr. Mustang," she ventured. "Do you think... do you think I'm just running away?"

Roy considered the question. She was leaving behind her childhood: some good memories, but more bad; some friends, but more enemies; some laughter, but more tears. She had been driven from her home by the tax collectors, and estranged from her neighbours by her father's misanthropy. There was nothing left for her in Hamner. What could she do but seek a new life elsewhere? It was necessity, not cowardice, that drove her.

"No," he said. "You're not running away. It's... an adventure."

She nodded a little, as if she understood. "The house..." she said.

"Yes?" Roy coaxed gently.

"I al-always meant to have that stupid step mended," she said, her voice faltering only a little. "Now I'll never have the chance."

Roy hesitated, not sure what to say. There were unshed tears in her eyes, and he wanted to comfort her, but he could not. They hardly knew each other anymore: he had no words to consol her.

Before his eyes, her expression fixed itself into one of stoic determination. "I suppose that means it isn't my problem anymore," she said firmly. "I _would_ like to sleep a little, Mr. Mustang – if you don't mind?"

"Not at all," he said hoarsely.

"Thank you, sir," she murmured. Then she eased herself down onto the hard bench, pillowing her cornflower-coloured head on the dark blue of his jacket. She drew the coat over her and hid her face in the collar.

Roy watched as her breathing slowed and grew deeper, and her grip on the greatcoat eased. The tiny lines of worry at the corners of her mouth vanished as she settled into slumber. He wanted to reach out and stroke her hair, but he could not do that anymore than he could comfort her while she was awake. He folded his arms across his chest and watched her. He desperately hoped that between the two of them they could get her settled in Central. Where the money would come from he did not know. Some of the cadets, especially those with families, had permission to take part-time employment after hours. Perhaps he could apply for such permission himself. And if Riza could find work, as she thought... but what sort of work could a thirteen-year-old girl, even one who had her diploma, get in a big city like Central? Perhaps Maes could help – but no. Maes had his own troubles now, with Ira dead and Ben so ill. Would he even return to the Academy on time, or would he take bereavement leave to be with his family?

It was strange to think that they had all come so far, and changed so much. Maes Hughes, once a carefree tinker's boy who had peddled marbles in the schoolyard and befriended a little throwaway reviled by his peers and his betters alike; now a veteran of battle, a career soldier whose brother and comrade had fallen in the field. Roy Mustang, once a ragged beggar-child starved for affection that only a child even younger than himself had cared enough to provide; now a proud young cadet, well on his way to becoming an officer and hopefully a State Alchemist. Riza Hawkeye, once a merry, carefree little girl who had laughed and loved and lived with such joyous abandon; now a sombre young woman hardened by grief and privation, who had been betrayed and violated by the one person in the world who should have protected her with her very life.

Whatever lay ahead, whatever challenges or pains or joys, one thing was certain. Nothing would ever be as it once had been. As much as he might wish for the old days, Roy knew those times would never come again.

They were not children anymore.

_Finis_

TO BE CONTINUED...  
in

"Shall Never See So Much"

Coming Soon from  
Stoplight Delight


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